PCs: The Missing Manual

Chapter 4. Printers

Printers give you a sense of physical accomplishment—something otherwise lacking in your interactions with your PC. You can hold printed sheets in your hands or pass them out with a flourish at a meeting. To help with this transformation from digital to physical, this chapter guides you through the following tasks:

• Selecting the right printer for your needs.

• Connecting and setting up a printer (or several) to your PC or laptop.

• Printing on the correct side of the paper, including printing long documents on both sides of the paper.

• Printing envelopes, including return addresses.

• Printing digital photos on your printer or at one of several professional developers.

• Distinguishing between paper types, so you choose the right one for whatever you’re printing.

• Replacing ink and toner cartridges, fixing paper jams, and buying replacement parts.

Printer Basics

You’ll find three main kinds of printers on the market today: inkjets, laser printers, and all-in-one devices. Consumers gravitate toward inkjet and all-in-one printers; businesses lean toward laser printers. The following pages explain how these printers work, which tasks they perform best, and which one you need for your work.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTION: Printer Language: Bitmaps, Vectors, Postscript, and PDL and PCL

While reading about printers, I read that some handle “ector” images, others print “bitmapped” images, and others print PCL and Postscript. What’s the difference, and why should I care?

For most people, those ...