What Does It All Mean

Picking out a printer that is right for your needs can be a difficult task. Knowing the following items can make your decision process a much easier task to perform.

DPI
DPI (dpi) stands for dots per inch. As the dpi goes up, so does the cost of the printer. You should purchase the printer that has the highest dpi that you can budget for. It is a very important feature, especially if you will be printing color photos.

Duplexing
Duplexing means double sided printing. Duplex printing is a great way to save paper. With printers that do not have duplex printing, you can print one side of the page, and then figure out which way the paper should go back in, and then you can print the second side. If you are like me, there is a lot of trial and error in this process. With a duplexing unit inside of the printer, the printer will actually print one side of the document, and pull the paper back into the printer, and then print the second side, it is all done automatically. Some printers offer this as a standard, meaning that it comes with the printer. Some printers will offer this as an add on or accessory that you can purchase separately. Some printers do not offer this type of printing at all.

Memory
Memory is very important if you will be printing large print jobs, many print jobs at once, or sharing with multiple computers that print a lot of documents. Memory is measured in MB (megabytes). The larger the number the better.

Networking
Depending on your need, there are two ways to share or network a printer. The first way is the simplest and cheapest way. It is called printer sharing. If you have two or more computers that are connected together in a small workgroup or on a network you can connect a printer directly to one of the computers and share it out to the other computers on the network. The second option is to buy a printer that is made for being on a network. You can purchase external devices that can network the printer, or you can purchase a printer that comes with the hardware already installed inside the printer. How you would look for this is in the name. For example: HP Laserjet 4300N, the N at the end means Network Printer, it has the networking device built into the printer already. If it reads HP Laserjet 4300dn, this means that it has a duplexing unit installed and a networking device.

PPM
PPM stands for Pages Per Minute. This is a very important feature. It is a good idea to purchase the fastest printer that you can. When you are printing a group of photos, or a large document, you will definately wish you had. If it is for home use, and you hardly ever print, then it may not matter too much to you.