Archive for February, 2007

Cut Your Printer Ink Costs In Half With These 3 Ink-Saving Printing Strategies

Wednesday, February 28th, 2007

By Jennifer L. Wilson

Printer Ink expenses are an essential factor to consider when running a home based business or just running an ordinary busy household for that matter. The amount you have to spend on printer ink can sum up to a small fortune if you’re not careful. You may have gotten a great deal on your new laser, ink jet or photo printer, but the annual price of printer ink cartridges and printer supplies may turn out to be a bank buster.

Many families have several printers in the house, each requiring its own type of ink jet or laser printer inks. Replacing HP printer ink can become very costly over time, and Canon printer ink refills can be hard to find at times, so finding cheap printer ink and inexpensive ink jet refills is an absolute must.

Printing photographs at home is a handy new technological wonder that seems to save hundreds of dollars in photo processing fees each year. But the price of replacing all those photo printer ink cartridges surely adds up. Printing photos sucks up a lot of ink, but there are a few minor adjustments, settings and tricks you can use to minimize printer ink usage when printing your digital memories.

Despite the expense, printer cartridges are a necessity, and most households just won’t run smoothly without them this day and age. So, finding ways to reduce the cost of replacing printer ink cartridges becomes crucial when there are two or three different printers running all the time.

The search for cheap printer ink seems to never end, but there are a few money saving strategies you can use to reduce ink use and lower your printer ink cartridge replacement costs.

One of the best ways to reduce printer ink, is to use the ‘Draft Quality’ setting on your printer. This will print your document at a lower resolution and save tons of ink. It is good to use this when printing most of your documents unless you really need a high quality print for presentations or photos. Its easy to adjust your printer to print in draft quality; just go to ‘File’ – ‘Print’ to open the box that lists the settings for your printer. Next, click ‘Properties’ to bring up the various options available. You’ll find different choices under the ‘Paper/Quality’ heading that allows you to select ‘Draft Quality’ printing.

Another great idea for reducing printer ink replacement costs is to choose ‘black and white’ printing only over color printing. Most printers have the option today to select gray scale printing using the black ink cartridge only. If you don’t need presentation quality work, chances are you won’t need the other colors anyway. Replacing black printer ink cartridges are less expensive so you should try to print in gray scale whenever possible.

If you really want to save a fortune on printer ink, change the kids’ printers over to grey scale printing too, here is how: go to ‘File’ – ‘Print’ to open the box that lists the settings for your printer. Next, click ‘Properties’ to bring up the various options available. You’ll find different choices under the ‘Color Adjustments’ heading that allows you to select ‘Black and White’ or ‘Grey Scale’ printing.

One of the biggest reasons you have to replace your printer ink cartridge so often is because personal printers produce high quality digital photograph prints. Printing these high quality digital shots, can really suck up a lot of printer ink fast, a really especially if you use photo paper. If you have a large photo printing project, it might be more cost effective to take your photos to a local printing store rather than sucking up all of your expensive printer ink.

If you enjoyed these helpful ink-saving strategies, please take a minute to join me at my Printer Review website where I’ll reveal 10 More Money Saving Printer Ink Conservation Tips and show you where to find Cheap Printer Ink Cartridges online.

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Photo Printers: How To Buy The Best Printer For Your Digital Memories

Thursday, February 22nd, 2007

By Jennifer L. Wilson

Family photos have gone digital – they are better quality, cheaper to print and digital images can go anywhere. You can instantly email your latest snapshots to your friends and family with few quick clicks, turn them into a slide show on your website, or you can print them for pennies.

Of course you’ll want to print and save your most priceless photos for framing, hanging on the wall or adding to family photo albums so you’ll want the best photo printer for the job. Digital photo printing has come a long way in recent years, its now possible to print a lab quality photograph directly from your home photo printer.

Almost all photo printers today produce true photo quality prints. In most cases you can’t tell the difference between photos printed from a photo printer and a print developed from film at a lab. What is even better, is that you can often get nice quality prints from photo printers costing as little as fifty or sixty bucks.

Weather you choose a Cannon ink jet photo printer or a HP photo printer, the difference between any given model almost always is speed and extra features, not necessarily the print quality. Each make and model of photo printers offer true photo quality prints, but the results range from nice to outstanding. Less expensive photo printers produce nice quality prints that are sufficient for everyday shots, but if you want to turn your memories into masterpieces, you’ll want to a high quality photo printer.

There are three categories of photo printers to choose from. The first is the ink jet photo printer. Ink jet photo printers offer at least one photo enhancing feature and also can be combined into an all in one printer. They print reasonably well, providing good photo prints but are known for slow print speed. The ink jet printer should be considered if you want a single, multifunction photo printer. You may want to consider a second printer if you regularly print photos.

Dedicated photo printers are the second category of printers to consider. These printers are normally limited to printing on special photo paper, usually thick, glossy photo paper to produce high quality, realistic photographs. Dedicated photo printers can also print on smaller paper sizes such as 4 by 6 to produce snapshot images. You can find dedicated photo printers that utilize ink jet and thermal-dye technology.

Professional photo printers are the third category to be considered. If you are a serious amateur photographer, you may be interested in the less expensive choices in this group. Professional photo printers produce high quality prints on various custom imaging papers in many customizable sizes. The main benefit to owning a professional photo printer is that they can print large 11 by 17 inch or larger photographs with perfect clarity.

No matter which type of photo printer you are considering, its always a good idea to check out the latest photo printer reviews and see which models the experts recommend before making your purchase.

Looking for a photo printer that will give you professional results without busting your bank account? Check out PC Printer Review’s list of the Top 5 Photo Printers in America and while you’re there, you can pick up some easy Photo Printing Tips with their free photo printing tip sheet: 27 Tricks to Picture Perfect Prints.

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The Many Uses Of An All In One Printer

Saturday, February 17th, 2007

By Michelle Bery

With products being introduced every day that streamline systems and work space, it’s no wonder that the all in one printer has become something of a staple in modern homes and offices. For the home office especially, the all in one printer can revolutionize a work environment, bringing unsurpassed organization and functionality to all projects.

The all in one printer executes a variety of functions including printing from the computer, general copying, scanning, and faxing. Its compact size maximizes space; gone are the multitude of machines that would be required to complete all that an all in one printer handles on its own. You will find that this greatly increases your workspace – clearing up an ordinarily crowded desk.

Of course the downside of having an all in one printer that encompasses all of these job functions is that if one system breaks, they all break to a certain extent. Having one portion of the all in one printer repaired requires you to part with the entire machine. Also, users must operate only one system at a time with an all in one printer; for instance, you can not copy while you are also scanning. If your work environment is such that multiple functions must take place simultaneously then an all in one printer may not be appropriate for your needs.

The cost of an all in one printer is really quite reasonable considering how much it would cost you to purchase all of these machines separately. They range in brand, size, and price from store to store. So take the time to shop around; you may even want to investigate online deals through the Internet. There are many office supply websites that offer comparable, if not deeply discounted prices, on machines such as the all in one printer. You may want to consider purchasing an extended warranty on such a machine, as it carries the responsibility of multiple functions.

The all in one printer, like most products continuing to appear on the market today, is meant to provide a streamlined alternative to commonly “bulky” equipment. If it fits your particular needs, you will find it to be an essential part of your home office.

For easy to understand, in depth information about printer visit our ezGuide 2 Printer.

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Disadvantages of a Laser Printer

Wednesday, February 14th, 2007

By Enid Edginton

There are very few disadvantages to owning a laser printer in general but one of them is definitely the cost. The money that you could spend on a very high-end inkjet printer will only buy you a very low-end color laser printer with limited capacities. Color laser printers with multi-functions such as a copier and a fax all in one are even more expensive. However a middle of the line black and white laser printer is comparable to the price of a top of the line color inkjet printer.

Another disadvantage is the cost of the cartridges inside a laser printer. Sometimes the cartridges cost almost as much as the printer did which is why many people throw the entire printer out and buy a new one after the cartridge expires in year or two.

The cartridges for laser printers are several times more expensive then the cost of the toner cartridges for inkjet printers. However they do last longer especially if you remember to set the printer in black and white printing mode when printing black and white and only using the color mode when it is really needed. Another way to make an expensive color laser toner cartridge last longer is to keep the printer in low quality mode unless you are printing out the final document.

If you live in a hot or humid climate a laser printer may not be the ideal solution for you. This is because running these machines can make a room very hot. The fuser inside them, which is the device that melts the plastic granules that constitute the powder that makes up the toner onto the paper, heats up to as high as 200 degrees Celsius.

Another limitation of a laser printer is that they only really print on certain kinds of paper. If you want to print out photographs then a laser printer is not for you as they are not yet capable of printing high-resolution images. Also you cannot put photographic paper through a laser printer. For the best quality images you need to buy a bubble jet ink printer that can transfer an image onto photographic paper. The color quality that you get with a bubble jet ink printer is just as good if not better than the color quality that you can obtain with a laser printer. A high-end color printer that produces quality color images can cost as much as $3,500 to $10,000 whereas you can get a good quality ink jet printer for about $200.

Another disadvantage of laser printers is that many of them are limited by the amount of memory that they are sold with. This can sometimes limit the number of fonts that you can use. To expand the memory of your color laser printer you usually have to buy a small RAM board. This is the only reliable way to install memory so that the color laser printer can utilize a number of fonts.

The more expensive a laser printer is the faster it is. The affordable models only print out about four pages a minute. Top end models print out about twelve pages a minute but they are not really affordable for the individual.

Laser printers, especially the color laser printers, can also be heavy and take up a lot of desk space or room in the office. At the time of writing there was also no such thing as a portable laser printer. The reason that a portable laser printer has yet to be invented is because a battery does not yet exist that is small enough to provide laser printer functions with enough power so that it can be taken on the road.

Have you ever wondered how laser printers work? Or what types of laser printers are available? Visit our site at Laser Printers Etc and find out.

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The Difference Of A Laser Printer

Sunday, February 4th, 2007

By Michelle Bery

The choice between the purchases of many different types of printers can be a challenging one. As sophisticated technology continues to change the landscape of the office environment, it becomes more and more difficult to determine the best course of action when choosing an appropriate printer. The laser printer, one of the more popular types of printers, has a variety of benefits that sets it apart from its counterparts.

As its name suggests, a laser printer employs the work of a laser beam to complete the printing process; the laser – like a camera of sorts – captures the image to be printed. The information is then printed by the toner cartridge which is standard to the laser printer. While other printers utilize liquid ink in their toner cartridges, a laser printer works with a powder ink that makes for a pristine and sophisticated result. The laser printer, free from ink and, therefore, free from smearing, produces a high resolution, and much more professional looking product than many other printers.

Office environments often turn to the laser printer for exactly this reason and are confident they can trust the laser printer to give them consistent professional results. And when, as is often the case in offices, multitudes of documents are printed at one time, the laser printer more than holds up to this increased need, leaving you free to concentrate on other things.

For a more creative work environment that relies on the printing of graphics and color photos, the laser printer continues to maintain its popularity. As office needs change, the laser printer keeps pace, elevating its technology almost yearly to match the demand for high resolution, photo quality copies.

Because of its price, the laser printer is often relegated to the office, rather than chosen for home use. But either way you use a laser printer, you will undoubtedly find its quality and reliability to be unmatched.

For easy to understand, in depth information about laser printers visit our ezGuide 2 Printers.

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