Inkjet Printer

An Inkjet Printer - For Quality and Affordability

The technology of the inkjet printer became mainstream about two decades ago. For a period of time, it was like other new technologies - too expensive to be the first option for most people. But as time progressed, the technology has become even more widely available because of two major factors - quality and price.

The inkjet printer works by shooting a tiny drop of ink from the inkjet printer cartridge onto the paper. While that may seem like a haphazard way of doing things, the precision of an inkjet printer is pretty incredible. The technology is so incredible that the general rule of thumb is, if you can create it on the computer, you can print it on the inkjet printer.

Remember that the drops of ink used by an inkjet printer are very tiny. While it's difficult to comprehend the number and configuration of dots needed to reproduce a photo taken by a digital camera, for example, the technology of the inkjet printer immediately deciphers the need and sets out to create the image. To understand just how small each dot is (and to get answers to all sorts of other burning questions about technology), check out a science website called "How Stuff Works." According to information on this website, located at www.howstuffworks.com, there are several kinds of printers, all divided into two categories. One category is made up of those printers in which some piece of the machinery touches the paper (impact printers) and those in which no piece of the printer actually touches the paper. The least expensive technology was once the dot matrix printer - the printer read the information from the computer screen and then created tiny dots on the paper to form the shape of the letters or pictures. While it was usable technology for the time, it was very slow and - in the famous words of pioneer carmaker Henry Ford - you could have it in any color you wanted, as long as it was black.

The inkjet printer is among the non-impact category. Each drop of ink that is shot onto the paper is smaller than the diameter of a human hair. That's pretty small and does explain the reason the dots can combine together to create a document, drawing or even a photograph.

As the technology has continued to expand, almost every major manufacturer of computer and office products has at least one inkjet printer for its customers. The cost of the technology has continued to fall and the basic inkjet printer is now easily available for well under $100.