How Office Printers Differ From Home Printers

2010-10-03

Oftentimes, people differentiate office printers from home printers solely by their physical traits. The office printer is usually large - depending on the number of employees and use for the printer - in order to accommodate the heavy amount of printing that is done in the office environment. By contrast, home printers tend to be small, usually not much longer than a laptop and not very wide. This is so they can be stored easily and also because most home printer owners don't print very much except for the occasional resume or coupon. While all of this is generally true, there are other characteristics and aspects of each type of printer that make them different. For example, office printer cartridges are different from home printer ink cartridges in more ways than one.

Officer printer cartridges are specifically made for the larger printer size and capacity that they'll be used for. Because office printers are bigger, one has to assume that the ink cartridges will be bigger as well. This is due to the amount of ink that gets used in the office. A typical job can range anywhere from a couple of pages, all the way up to 100 and more, depending on the size of the company and the type of work they do. In either case, the ink cartridge needs to be able to keep up with the demands that are put on it without wavering in quality and quantity. For this reason, they are made to hold more ink and usually come in combination packages, containing the 4 colors that the printer holds.

On the other side of the coin are the home ink cartridges, which are much smaller and serve a different purpose. Home printing usually doesn't involve very detailed printing jobs or jobs that require a high quality print. Therefore, home printer cartridges tend to last a bit longer and are sold separately by color - black, cyan, magenta, and yellow. This could be more expensive depending on where you purchase your cartridges. But it does benefit the home printer owner more to buy their cartridges separately than together because you may only run out of one color or another. In an office, however, this is not the case. Cartridges tend to use up all of the color ink, though black is still the most often used.

It is important to know the real differences between a home printer and an office printer because it will determine what type of printer you'll buy, as well as what type of cartridges you'll need. Figure out what kind of jobs you'll be using the printer for.