Britney's Business Tips

In the market for a new printer? Thanks to advances in printer technology, there are more and better choices of printers now than ever before. If you want to buy the right printer, it is important to understand what you need for your work.

Take the guesswork out of your printer selection process and buy the right machine by reading this essential printer buying guide.

Paper Size

What paper sizes do you need to print? The size of your printer should match the paper sizes you want to feed into the printer. Some printers are too small to accept a standard-size paper, while others are too big for standard-size papers.

If you need a printer for a new business, you can browse the web to find out what sizes are most common. If you are looking to upgrade, ask your customers what sizes they would want if you had larger print capabilities. 

Print Resolution

When it comes to print quality, the resolution is one of the most important printer specs to look out for. Printer resolution indicates the sharpness and clarity of an image produced by a printer and is measured in dots per inch (dpi). The higher the number, the higher the quality of the image produced. If you're looking for a printer that you can use for fine art reproduction, it is best to go for a printer with a high image resolution.

If you want a multi-purpose printer with a wide range of capabilities when it comes to print resolution, go for a machine covering various DPI modes.

Printer Speed

It's frustrating when you need to print several copies of a document yet your printer doesn't seem to get the job done fast enough. If you do a lot of printing, speed is a printer spec that will matter greatly to you. Measured in pages per minute (ppm), printer speed will determine how many pages of text and images you can print within one minute. The greater the number, the greater the number of pages you can print in a single minute. 

When you look at the box used to package a printer, you typically will only see one printer speed rating indicated. This shows the number of pages of text that the printer can create per minute. However, printers usually have separate speed ratings for pages of text than they do for images. 

The above-discussed specs are a few of the most important ones to consider when buying printers. Of course, there are other printer specs to be considered. Make sure you know what you need before making a purchase decision.