What is an inkjet printer?

What is an inkjet printer?

There are two main types of printer: inkjet printers and laser printers. As a consumer it's not always obvious what type of printer you have.

Inkjet printers use liquid ink stored in small ink cartridges, which, in the simplest terms sprays ink on to the paper; usually as the paper moves through the printer the ink cartridges (held in a carriage) will move from side to side to render the ink on the page.

The immediate printout from an inkjet printer will usually be wet to the touch (because the ink is in liquid form), and will require anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes to dry and become smudge resistant. Particular Epson ink cartridges have been developed to use smudge, fade and water resistant ink. These are available where shown on our website. Inkjet printers are the most common type of printer for home use. Because of the comparatively low cost, they are ideal for low volume and high-quality printing.

It is quite rare to find inkjet printers that only print in black, in recent years with the increase in digital photography many manufacturers have added photo printing functions to their range of inkjet printers for which colour cartridges are a necessity. Inkjet printers can vary in size, but as they are mostly intended for home use they generally have a small footprint to make them ideally situated on a desk or computer unit.

What is an ink cartridge?

An ink cartridge (sometimes called an ink refill or ink tank) is a plastic cartridge containing specially formulated ink or inks for your printer.

Ink cartridges are usually quite small (rarely larger than a pack of playing cards), and do not usually weigh very much (often less than one hundred grams).