Every office needs a printer, but the question (or questions) you need to ask yourself are about your company’s productivity needs—not what the thrills and gadgets of printers are.

• Do you need it to copy, fax, scan (color documents and photographs), and copy in color or plain black and white?
• Additional questions are do you need your printer to print photo quality prints (i.e. with a photo cartridge for optimum quality), and do you need your printer to print banners and posters?

These are some of the key questions that you will need to analyze before investing in a key component of office equipment, and notice that there is no question here about needing a printer—in an age of computer reliant business practices, printers are must haves and “no brainers.”

Key tips for the type of printer you should buy largely depend on the type and size of your business. The first thing that you need to hold fast to when buying your printer is to purchase an office printer. Office printers are often called laser printers, or printers that use toner instead of cartridges. Cartridges are small, and fit in the palm of your hand—toner units take two hands to insert into the machine (but they slide in quite easily). Often times, small business owners will buy a home-office printer because the price is considerably cheaper. But, when paying less than 100 dollars for your printer, and ink cartridges in the 35 dollar range (average pricing here), you can not expect these devices to hold up to the demands that an office will bring. These products are priced low, and their shelf life is short (meaning that newer and cheaper products enter the market frequently) because manufactures know that these consumers will need to continually upgrade their printers after a year or two of use. Keeping these prices low accelerates demand, and their “temporary” quality allows for consumers to easily (and without deep contemplation) purchase new ones. Accordingly, save yourself the hassle, and continual replacement of printer cartridges, by purchasing an office printer. These run from 100 to 1000 dollars, and their cartridges are about 40 to 200 dollars. Initially, these prices might seem high, but you will receive at least five years of use from the printer and each printer cartridge prints well over a thousand pages, usually in the three thousand range (slightly less for color pages)—much more than you will get from 35 dollar home-office printer cartridge. These printers are made for light daily use, and their life expectancy greatly diminishes in a busy and productive office atmosphere. Justly, these smaller printers are good to have at an individual’s desk, but when you need to print out several large jobs they will quickly get overheated and possibly break down. Thus, keep the smaller printers for individual use, and maintain an office size and quality printer for most jobs.

Color and More

If your business does a lot of color printing, needs photo quality images and paper, and relies upon images for documents, productions, and continual sales then you should certainly buy a general, all purpose, office printer and a separate color enabled and photo quality printer. These printers should be bought separately. These separate systems will not only give you higher quality photos, but they will preserve the life of your printers. Another good reason to purchase two printers for your office (the black and white and the color/photo systems) is so that you will not have to wait for the printer to finish a lengthy, or time consuming, photo job before getting to your standard document.

With the color and photo system printers, you need to be aware that some printers only print color copies, some only photos, and some both (the vast majority of the market). With photo copies, you will need to have a photo cartridge in your printer to achieve optimal photo quality, but this statement does not mean that you have to use a photo cartridge all of the time. These cartridges are slightly more than standard color ink units because photo ink is meant for photo paper (high gloss, gloss, mat, etc.). But, if you are printing drafts, or documents for low copy, then using a regular color ink is fine. Accordingly, a printer that had a multi color function—for color and photo printing—is optimal. Lastly, a time saving invest would be to purchase a color/photo printer that will let you directly download digital photos and print from the printer. This avenue saves times, and energy, because quickly needed photographs do not need to be uploaded to your computer and then manually printed from there. These printers can also be used for general printing.

Reality Check

Lastly, when buying a printer for your office, you should consider purchasing one general office printer, a color/photo printer (if needed), and a photo/copy/fax/ printer combo. This last device should not replace the other printers. Rather, it can serve as a small copy machine (jobs of more than 25 copied pages tends to be difficult) while still receiving and sending faxes, produce color printouts for an as needed basis, and this multi combo unit will reduce your expenses by combining your fax and copy machine costs. These systems also range from 100 to 1000 dollars, and the amount you pay is largely up to your budget and what your printing needs are. Additionally, they are durable and support light to extensive printing jobs, but they do tend to use up ink rather quickly. Therefore, having a general office printer (a laser printer using toner) will prevent breakdowns and excessive ink usage. The maintenance on these multi-functional units is simple, and no different than other printers, with the only real breakdowns occurring with the printer unit—but this is a standard occurrence with any printing system.

With these thoughts in mind, arm yourself with consumer know-how and smart businessmanship to purchase the printing system that best suits your office needs by buying a product that will allow you continual productivity and smooth office operations.