Correct paper and ink combination

Paper is your printers best friend, there’s no point in having a printer without paper! You should ensure that the paper you feed into your printer is the correct type. Below are some important details you need to know to make sure your printer and paper have a ‘lasting relationship’!

Never used damaged paper

Whilst you should always try your best to use recycled paper in your printer for unimportant documents, you should never feed torn or bent paper into the paper tray. This could damage your printer and cause paper jams. Aside from the inconvenience and waste of time that removing jammed paper from your printer causes, it could also break some internal parts. When using recycled paper, make sure you remove any staples, sticky tape or anything else attached to the paper before inserting it into the printer.

Never fan a ream of paper before loading it

Static electricity may build up between the sheets of paper and this can result in nasty paper jams. The very thing you are trying to avoid by fanning the paper actually causes paper jams to occur! More recent printer models can separate pages efficiently on their own.

Never store paper in humid environments

High humidity can cause sheets of paper to stick together. This can cause printing errors, especially if you have a low-end older printer model. As mentioned, recent printer models are capable of separating the pages in the paper tray. If you don’t have a recent printer model, always ensure you store your paper in a low humidity area.

Paper and ink combination

We all carry on printing and printing, but do we ever stop to consider the quality of our prints? Especially when printing photographs and high quality images. Below are some important factors you should consider the next time you print.

The first thing you should look for in the printer it it’s compatibility with the paper. What paper types are compatible with your printer? Does it require photo paper? Is it only compatible with regular white paper? How about thermal paper? Looking at all the different types of paper can help you determine the quality of your prints.

The second thing to consider is the type of your printer. Prints from a colour inkjet printer generally take a long time to dry, so you need to be especially careful when printing from this type of printer. There is a chance of smearing the ink, thereby ruining an otherwise good quality print out.

Laser printers are slightly better to use since they are more accurate and the ink dries much faster compares to their inkjet counterparts. Considering this advantage, laser printers may seem the much better option, but there is a problem! Laser printers tend to be too expensive for home users, a laser printer can cost at least twice as much as an inkjet printer and the toner cartridges are a lot more expensive too. Home users on a tight budget might want to stick to an inkjet printer. If you want professional quality prints then you may be better off considering a laser printer.

Quality prints boil down to two main things – paper type and printer type. Both of these have a direct impact on how the prints will turn out, since both the paper and ink are the main determinants of print quality.