Desktop Printing

How to Print From a Desktop Printer

Inkjet printers and photo printers often come bundled with computer systems. Color laser printers that once cost thousands of dollars now go for just a few hundred dollars and provide fast, beautiful, crisp color printing. You should choose a printer based on how you plan to use it -- such as for photos, for word processing, or for a home-based business.

If you do desktop publishing, you should consider whether or not you'll need a PostScript printer.

Unless you never plan to print in color, for best results you need to adjust your monitor and printer so that when you see a shade of red on screen, that same shade of red is what you get from your printer. If you scan a dark blue logo, you want the same blue to be in the graphic and on the paper when you print that logo. Many graphics software programs come with color management tools built-in. These may be all yuu need for color calibration between your monitor and desktop printer. There are also some very simple methods that give decent results and other more complex methods for when color matching is absolutely critical.

The three primary differences between commercial offset printing and desktop printing are the colors of ink and the way the ink is placed on the paper as well as the type of machinery used to accomplish the task. Most desktop printers are either some form of inkjet or laser.

• Typically, inkjet printers form images by spraying tiny droplets of liquid ink onto paper. Small size and precision placement of the dots of ink produce very near photo-quality images.
• Static electricity is the principle behind laser printers which use a revolving cylinder, a laser beam, fine powder toner, and heat to create images on paper.

Set up printer options to match the document being printed. If you have more than one printer, be sure to choose the right one. Commons options include paper size and orientation, print quality, how many pages to print, how many copies to print, and whether or not to scale/resize the document on-the-fly.

• Setting print options in Word 2007
• Change paper size for printing in Microsoft Word
• Scaling document to a different paper size for printing
• Printing a select portion of a document

If your software offers the option, it's usually a good idea to do a print preview. Do this after setting the printing options (including choosing a printer and setting the paper size). A print preview can alert you if your text or images are too big for the paper size you've chosen.

When it comes to print speed for your inkjet or laser printer, there are a lot of variables to consider. The PPM (print-per-minute) touted by the printer manufacturer is an approximation. Inkjet printers are slower than laser printers. Printing in a single color is generally faster than full color. The more photos on the page, the onger it will take to print. The higher you set the print quality, the longer it will take to print a page. If you're just printing out proofs of a document, set the quality lower for faster printing until you ready to print the final version. One way you can print faster on any printer is to print in draft mode.

Also see:
Setting Word to print in draft quality.

There is a wide variety of paper out there for desktop printers. Some papers are specifically for inkjet printing. Other papers are designed to work in laser printers. You can get glossy, semi-glossy, and matte finishes. Some photo papers are not designed for two-sided printing. Photos on glossy paper will look more like the photo prints you get when you develop rolls of film. Photos use lots of ink so you'll want the thicker papers developed specifically for photos. Plain office paper doesn't work well. Paper brightness affects how text and images look.

Most printing is done on some kind of paper. But you can also print on fabric. There are some desktop printers that will let you print directly on a CD or DVD.

Also see:
• Tips for preparing to print on transfer paper.
• Create and print transparency rub-ons for scrapbooking.

Sometimes when you hit the print button nothing happens. Or sometimes the printer seems to go wild, spitting out blank pages or gibberish or globs of ink. Keep the user's manual for your printer handy.

• Unjam a paper jam.
• Clean a the printhead.
• Troubleshoot files that won't print.