Inkjet Printing - Advantages

Advantages

Compared to earlier consumer-oriented color printers, inkjets have a number of advantages. They are quieter in operation than impact dot matrix or daisywheel printers. They can print finer, smoother details through higher printhead resolution, and many consumer inkjets with photographic-quality printing are widely available.

In comparison to more expensive technologies like thermal wax, dye sublimation, and laser printing, inkjets have the advantage of practically no warm up time, and lower cost per page. However, low-cost laser printers can have lower per-page costs, at least for black-and-white printing, and possibly for color.

For some inkjet printers, monochrome ink sets are available either from the printer manufacturer or from third-party suppliers. These allow the inkjet printer to compete with the silver-based photographic papers traditionally used in black-and-white photography, and provide the same range of tones: neutral, "warm" or "cold". When switching between full-color and monochrome ink sets, it is necessary to flush out the old ink from the print head with a cleaning cartridge. Special software or at least a modified device driver are usually required, to deal with the different color mapping.

Some types of inkjet printers are capable of very high speed printing. One commercial high speed ink jet printer can print on 30 inch wide web at 200 meters / minute.