Computer printers are innovatively designed and manufactured by various manufacturers with distinct features. Printers can be classified on the basis of the printing technology. Each technology has both advantages and disadvantages. The cost of the printers varies according to the printing speed and quality. Mostly inkjet printers and laser printers have marketed in the UK with varying cost. Colour compatibility of the printers can also vary. Some printers have come with the ability to offer colourful printing output.

Some of the printer considerations are listed below:

• Printing Quality

The printing quality is an essential factor to be considered when you buy a printer. The printing quality of the printers can be measured with the help of the unit of measurement 'DPI' (Dots per Inch). When the 'dpi ' is high in number the quality of printing will be high.

• Cost

First determine your budget. On the basis of your budget, you can go for the purchase of a printer. If there are no constraints about the budget, it is better to go for laser printers to get sharp images or documents.

• Printing Speed

The speed of the printer has to be well thought-out. When printing speed is high, the users can take more number of printouts in short time. The printing speed can be measured with the unit 'page per minute' (PPM). This measurement indicates the ability of a particular printer to print the total number of pages in one minute. Make sure about the PPM rating before buying the printer.

• Colour compatibility

If you need to take photo prints with eye catchy colours, your printer has to be a colour printer. If you buy a printer just to print black and white text, it is better to go for inkjet printers which use black and white ink cartridges.

• Go for the latest model

Never choose an old model as it may not provide all the advanced printing options. Specialised photo printers are the best example for the latest arrival. They have slots so that the users can print directly from other external storage devices like digital cameras.

The above mentioned information would prove useful when buying a new printer.

Printer is a Computer component that is used to print data from the computer. When you plan to go for a new printer some important things are to be considered.

• Printers vary from their sizes and capabilities. In the market it ranges from portable printers to compact printers. Most of the printers come with multifunction features like copier, scanner and fax functions. But you have to make sure that you have enough space to place it.

• The next thing is to decide what kind of printer is to be bought, whether an Inkjet printer or a laser printer.

• Ink jet printers are less expensive. But select it only if you have rare usage or for colour printouts, because the consumption of ink is too high.

• After you choose the printer type, go for the brand selection. Many leading brands in the UK will provide you good service and support.

• Make sure that your system's operating system will support your printer. Some older system doesn't support printers.

Connecting a printer
Steps for connecting your printer are given below.

• For Laser printer leave some spaces on the sides for ventilation. But for ink jet printer there is no need for this.

• Printer cable is a needy thing and you can buy a bidirectional, IEEE 1284-complaint cable.

• Check the connectors and its opposite ends. Join the 25-pin end of the cable to the printer and the computer. These are to be done after you shut down your Computer.

• Tighten the screws, plug the power cord perfectly. Now switch ON your printer and install the cartridge. Then switch ON your computer and install the printer driver. At last check the working by taking a test printout.

Do's and Don’ts

• According to law, even if the user uses toner or ink manufactured by other company, then also the printer's warranty must be applicable.

• But some producers avoid the warranty when you use refilled cartridges. So confirm it.

• Purchase a maximum 6-foot cable to avoid scarcity.

• If you have multifunction printer then no need of parallel cable or port.

As we are living in a computerized world, it is very necessary of have a printer which has all-in-one facilities like faxing, scanning, and copying functions. To select a best all-in-one printer you must follow these steps.

All-In-One Business Printers
It is wise enough to choose a printer which has built-in networking capability. Select a printer which has automatic document feeder with multifunction. The printer must have a multiple paper tray with high capacity. It is wise to check the speed capacity of the printer. It is better to buy a laser printer than buying an ink-jet printer, as the laser printer comes with multiple ink cartridges for the highest-quality colour prints.

Tips and Warnings
The laser printers have duplexing ability to copy or print both sides of the paper without having to flip the paper over. Make sure that the multifunction printer you choose can connect with every computer in your office.

Ink-Jet Printers
Ink-jet printers are affordable and versatile compared to laser printers as you will be printing logos and graphics as well as special media. Consider more qualities for digital photo prints, get a photo printer. Check the speed of the printer, as you will have to print hundred and thousands of documents, so speed matters. Naturally, pictures take longer than text to print, so keep in mind if you intend to print many pictures. USB 2.0 is the best connectivity that you must prefer and it is also advised to buy a printer with an Ethernet and Bluetooth for a wireless connection. It is useful to have printers that can handle printing of envelopes, banners, posters, DVDs, CDs, brochures and postcards.

Tips and Warning
USB 1.1 ports can handle USB 2.0 connection without any problems. The ink-jet printer you buy must have multifunction features in it. It is wise to avoid wastage of photo paper and ink as they are expensive.

Printer is a Computer accessory that mainly used for printing purpose. With the help of the printer user can print the data from the computer to the paper. Buying a printer as separate one is best. Printers are of different types depending upon their size, printing speed, style and cost.

Printer Technologies
While you go for a printer you must have some knowledge about them. It is required that you know about the different types of printers sold in the market. Here some of the frequently used printer technologies are described for your reference.

Generally two main types of printer technologies are used and each has some subdivisions:
• Impact
• Non Impact

Impact:
In impact all the links are made to the printer and paper. The Impact technology can be subdivided further into two categories.
The first category is known as Dot Matrix Printer. In this, a series of pins are used and it strikes a ribbon fully covered with ink. By this action, the ink makes an impression on the paper.

The second category is called as character printers. This is similar to a computerized typewriter. Normally a series of bars or ball is used. When the letter or number strike against the ink ribbon and prints the same thing. For the text based printouts, character printers help you well.

Non Impact:
Another printer technology is Non Impact. All sorts of ink jet printers come under this technology. Ink jet printers use a group of nozzle which sprays the droplets of ink and it will make the impression on the page.

The next one similar to this is laser printer. This type of printer technology is some what complicated, because inside the printer there is one toner. Heat is supplied and the ink fuses to make the impression.

Some other technologies are dye-sublimation printers. In this a roll of translucent film is used. Cyan, black, magenta and yellow are the four colour solid dye which is used for printing. These dyes will vaporize and spread it on the surface before they go to its solid state.

Thermal wax printers work under the combination of dye sublimation and solid ink printers. Colour ribbons are used in this printer.

Thermal Auto Chrome printer works same as Thermal wax Printers.

Macintosh desktop printers are one among the printers that are used widely these days. This is all due to the services and the quality they prefer and deliver. Generally printers will have features that are to be explained. Macintosh desktop printers have got some features that help to handle the printer easily. As soon as you install the printer to the computer opt for the apple menu select chooser from the menu and click on the printer driver that you wish to use. In case you are connected to a network of computers, then identify the computer in which you are installing the printer.

To make the printer icon visible in the desktop just click on the create button to make the point visible in the desktop. When you are in need to print a document then drag the particular document to the icon that you have made on the desktop, as soon as you drag, an application will be launched and it will start printing.

To check on the printing status of the printing document click on the printer icon in the desktop so that it will display the content of printing and the status of it. This will allow you to stop or cancel the print while in process. If you disagree with creating a desktop pointer on the desktop then you will not be able to use the desktop printer as the whole function works on it. To prefer these things better refer the software documentations so that you will be able to know the product even better.

To take print outs from a printer the general formats that a printer will accept are document files of word, excel etc. As while in need of printing some more enhanced graphical formats this type of printers will not support you as the technology of highly printable graphics differs from the normal printing. Some of the non supportable formats in this printer are graphics files in the EPS, GIF, JPEG and PostScript formats.

Printer is an electronic device which supports for the printing quality. The users can take effective printouts with sharp quality. The design of printers has improved a lot recently. A remarkable thing to be mentioned here is the price reduction. Though the printing technology has grown like anything, the prices of printers are still feasible. It is easy to get a laser printer in the UK market. Mostly printers can be divided into two namely laser printers and inkjet printers.

As laser printers are more expensive than inkjet printers, they are mostly preferred for official uses. Small business people and home users are interested to buy inkjet printers as they are available at a reasonable cost. Users have to select the printer's type according to their usage and printing needs. If you want to buy a printer for home needs, then it might prove useful to take printouts for school projects. Therefore it is advisable to go for a versatile printer to perform multiple jobs like printing photos, documents etc. If it has features like scanning facilities and photocopying, you will get extra advantages.

Laser printers can be used when you want to take maximum number of printouts. While you are in need to take printout only in black and white, you are recommended to buy a personal laser printer. The printing quality of these printers is comparatively better than inkjet printers. Though you buy a low end model of laser printer, it will support to do graphical works. You can get more than enough printing speed in these types of laser printers.

Types of portable printers

There are some printers which are specially designed with a unique feature of portability. They are known as portable printers which can be moved around anywhere as they weigh less. They have come with the potential to print even photos.
Portable printers can be classified into two namely business and photo printers. Most of the portable printers have manufactured with the ability to fulfil printing needs for large businesses. These printers weigh less and therefore are highly portable. But photo printers have come with the ability to print photos with the size up to 7 x 5 inches. The users can print photos directly from your digital cameras or memory cards.

Considerations in connection with printers
1. Cost of the printer
2. Printing speed in pages per minute
3. Printing quality in dots per inch
4. Cost per page
5. Size
6. Connectivity
7. Power Consumption
8. Automatic document feeder
9. Weight etc.

Keep these points in mind when you plan to buy a computer printer.

In today’s modern world we require a printer to print the documents in paper. We are well familiar with both black and white printer and colour ink-jet printers. There are a range of factors that can stick up the mechanism of a printer and cause frequent jams. To clear these frequent jams you may be persuaded to resolve the trouble by changing your printer with a brand new one. Here are some supportive moves towards making a diagnosis and resolve the problem.

You may inspect whether the paper trays are overloaded with papers to get them printed, so make sure the tray is not overloaded. To find out if this is the problem, test the printer with only one paper loaded in the paper tray. If this turns out to be problem then keep the paper tray half-full.

Sometimes the paper may not be according to the size required by the printer manufacturer's commendations. As a result check that the type of paper that is used. There are some examples for this problems, the paper designed for ink-jet printers doesn't work well in laser printers. High quality bonded paper will cause paper jams in some printers, so it is better to look for bonded paper that is "laser and ink-jet' compatible.

In some cases you may use the printer to print the labels, so be aware to check to see if a label has come unglued from a sheet to avoid the label to be stuck inside the printer. If you reuse the paper to print make sure that the paper is not torn, wrinkled or torn or bends as this will cause paper jams. You must turn off the printer before you remove the bits of paper and check the gear and rollers. Rollers that are cracked and glazed create frequent paper jams, so it should be replaced by a technician. Use line-free cloths and isopropyl alcohol to clean rollers of laser printers. When the printer gets jammed you must try to change the toner or the ink cartridges used for printing. On the breakage of the gear you may hear a clinging sound during printing so it needs to be serviced by a technician.

A computer printer is a device that allows data in the computer to be transferred onto paper for more tangible handling. The printer hooks into the computer, communicates with it, receives the document or information, known as a print job, then creates it in hardcopy form. Printers can either be:

1. attached to one computer via cable (known as a peripheral computer) or
2. connected to a network, either wireless or using an Ethernet connection (known as a network printer)

Cables and Drivers
All printers will need drivers. Drivers are software programs that allow the printer and computer to communicate. They usually come with the printer and often can be downloaded from the manufacturer’s website.

Peripheral printers will be connected by cable. USB is a popular cable connection because it is rather universal. Printers still come with serial and parallel port connections. They are longer and wider, have pins that fit into holes on the inside of a metal and plastic bracket. Some printers have fire wire option, which is usually reserved for digital and moving images.

Printer Basics
There are several types of printers. Purchase merits will be based on colour, speed, resolution, duty cycles and post purchase consumable costs.

Colour printers are more expensive than black and white printers. They are useful for flyers or documents that require multiple pigments. They are most useful for colour photos and images. They will print slower than black and white printers.
Mono chrome printers are black ink on white paper. They tend to be cheaper and faster than colour printers.

Resolution is measured in dots per inch (dpi). Resolution measures how fine and accurate the printer prints. The better the resolution, the more professional the document looks.

Speed is measured in page per minute or ppm. Speed will vary depending on the resolution setting. High resolution print jobs will print slower that lower resolutions on the same printer.

The duty cycle is the amount of pages per month that the printer can handle without burning out the unit.

Consumables
Each type of printer will have costs associated with the purchase of ink or toner, paper and sometimes drums or other small parts. Consumables can be manufacturer specific, so checking into price and availability are important to controlling life of the printer costs.

Memory
Printers will usually come with a small amount of memory so the computer may transfer a print job to the printer. This frees up the computer’s memory for other tasks. Printers that perform complex options may have larger memories, or even small processors.

Paper Feed Trays
Paper feed trays can range from 50-100 for home use or 500 and more for office use. Once all trays are extended small printers may actually take up more space than slightly larger printers with self contained feed trays.

Types of Printers
There are two basic types of printers: laser printers and inkjet printers. These printing technologies can then be combined with other functions to produce multi-function printers, all in one printers, digital photo printers and scanner printers. Dot matrix printers are still used as well.

Laser Printers
Laser printers take advantage of static charge on the ink and paper. The ink is charged positively. The image is negatively charged using lasers on the drum, which attracts the ink. The paper is also negatively charged, and the ink is transferred and fused with heat. Laser jet printers use toner cartridges instead of ink cartridges.

LED printers use the same process, except LED technology is used instead of lasers.

Mono Laser printers (black and white) and colour laser printers have a lower cost per page if you are doing high volume printing. However they must warm up each time they print. They print with higher quality on cheap paper but are not as good with photos as inkjet printers.

Inkjet Printers
Inkjet printers spray a high speed stream of ink onto the paper. They need time to dry, unlike laser jet printers, and tend to diffuse into the paper.

Bubble jet printers are an off shoot of this technology.

Inkjet printers are more economical up front than laser printers, but tend to cost more per page in high volume printing. They run the risk of smearing if not allowed to dry. Inkjets require high quality paper to get a professional look, however they are superior to laser printers when it comes to photo printing.

Dot Matrix
Dot matrix printers are an older technology which puts dots of ink on the page to make the image. They are generally considered obsolete in use but can still be purchased for those with a specific dot matrix need.

Digital Photo Printers
Digital photo printers can be hooked to a computer, or can be dedicated to a camera hook-up. They usually can accommodate special photo paper and more complex ink systems to create photo quality images.

Scanner Printers
Scanner printers are also known as photocopier printers. They have a glass panel on which the page to be copied, is placed. It is scanned into the computer and then printed.

Multifunction Printers
Multifunction printers are known as all-in-one printers. They usually can scan, print digital photos, photo-copy and can sometimes even fax documents. They come in colour or black and white.