Consumers have three areas to consider when choosing print materials: the press, paper, and ink. Inkjet and laser printers are the most common, with laser being better quality but more expensive. Paper can be divided by thickness and special characteristics, including color and finish. Ink quality is determined by the printer, but consumers can choose to purchase branded or other branded ink.
When it comes to choosing print materials, there are three separate areas for consumers to choose from: the press, the paper, and the ink. Printers are typically inkjet or laser, which can make one printer better suited for a job than others. Paper is the largest category of printing materials, because there are colored papers, thick or thin papers, papers with different finishes and many other options. Ink is rarely an option, although some printers have different quality inks. Depending on what you’re printing, there’s likely to be a perfect set of printing materials for the job.
The two most common printing machines are inkjet and laser. Inkjet uses a nozzle to spray dots of ink onto a page, while laser printers expose paper to static charges and toner is attracted to the charge. In terms of quality, laser machines are better, but laser printers and associated materials are usually more expensive. If a consumer needs high quality printouts with sharp, fine lines, laser printers are better. If the consumer just needs to print some text, either for reading or for filing, an inkjet printer might be better.
Printing paper is the broadest of the printing material categories, but can be divided by thickness and special characteristics. Thin printing paper doesn’t hold ink well, so it’s usually not suitable for dense color printing, but it’s cheap and good for text that needs to be archived or when quality isn’t an issue. Thicker paper, especially card stock, is needed for prints that require strength, will be handled frequently by people, or need to absorb a large amount of ink.
The paper’s special characteristics include its color and finish. Most printing paper is white, making it suitable for common print jobs. If a print job requires a background color, then it’s cheaper to buy colored paper than rely on printing, because coloring a whole sheet of white paper requires a lot of ink. Paper can also have a matte or glossy finish, or no finish at all. Matte and glossy papers are made for photos and are more expensive but have better texture; plain paper has no finish.
The printer generally determines the type of ink used, and the consumer can choose to purchase the printer’s branded ink or other branded ink. Some printers have different quality inks, such as an ink set made for photos. If quality is an issue for your print materials, getting this high-quality set will be better, but the ink will also be more expensive.
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