PRINTERS AND PAPER

As I mentioned in the introduction, it really doesn’t mat-

ter what word-processing or page-layout program you
use—all of them are capable of producing
good typography.
But your printer and paper can make a big difference in the final
result. As your eye for typography gets better, you’ll start to no-
tice that not all printers are alike.
(I am not a compensated endorser of any products mentioned be-
low. These recommendations reflect my experiences. Yours
may vary.)
inkjet printer or laser printer?
Laser. Inkjet printers used to be the cheaper and lower-quality
alternative to laser printers. Inkjets are a lot better than they
were 20 years ago, but they still can’t equal the crisp edges of
laser printing.
Why? Inkjet printers work by spraying small droplets of liquid
ink onto the paper, which start out wet and then dry in the air.
The wet droplets spread slightly as they’re absorbed into the pa-
per. That’s a desirable effect for photographs, because it helps
blend adjacent colors, and it’s why inkjets are preferred for
photo printing. It’s not desirable for text, because it makes edges
less distinct. And as the text gets smaller, the problem becomes
more pronounced.
Laser printers work by depositing particles of dry toner onto the
paper and then fusing the toner to the paper with heat. This cre-
ates a sharper edge on the printed page and makes laser printers
better suited for printing text.
Over the years, laser printers have also gotten a lot cheaper. So
there’s no longer any reason to use an inkjet printer.
postscript or not?
Before a printer can render a page, the layout on the screen has
to be converted into an intermediate format using a page-de-
scription language. If you ever wondered what a printer driver
does, that’s what.
The PDF file format is built on a subset of the PostScript lan-
guage. PDF was a proprietary Adobe format until 2008, when it
became an open standard.
PostScript is a proprietary page-description language owned by
Adobe. In the ’80s, most laser printers were built on PostScript,
in much the same way that most computers today are built on
Windows. As laser-printing hardware became cheaper to manu-
facture, printer makers sought alternatives to PostScript with
lower licensing fees.
Most printers today don’t use licensed PostScript. The main al-
ternative is PostScript emulation, which approximates PostScript
using non-Adobe technology. Other page-description languages
exist—the most common one is PCL, owned by Hewlett-
Packard and found mostly in their printers.
Why should you care?
Online printer reviewers claim to evaluate text quality, but their
standards are lax, and their judgments subjective.
Printer resolution (usually rated in DPI, or dots per inch) can be
a misleading metric. Printer hardware can only output a fixed
number of dots in a square inch (for instance, 600 × 600). But
printer makers will often claim “effective” resolutions of 2400 ×
600 or more, usually the result of puffery and dubious math.
Caveat emptor.
First, different page-description languages—and different emu-
lations of a page-description language—will render a given doc-
ument slightly differently. In my experience, those differences
are often most noticeable in the quality of printed text, and that
quality can vary widely.
Second, no printer can ever be better than its printer driver.
Garbage in, garbage out. Even if a printer has excellent technical
specifications—great resolution and print speed—it can be hob-
bled by a bad driver. And if it turns out your printer has bad dri-
ver software, there’s not much you can do except buy a differ-
ent printer.
Among page-description languages, PostScript is still the gold
standard. It dominates professional publishing. Therefore, if you
want the best printed output, consider a printer that uses true li-
censed PostScript. (For instance, most members of the Xerox
Phaser line of printers. I own one of these.)
If you’re considering a printer that uses PostScript emulation,
scrutinize its output before you buy. Get samples of black text at
various sizes. Ignore the ritzy color photo that most printers use
as their automatic test page. That photo may be pretty, but it
won’t tell you anything about how the printer performs with
text-heavy documents.
photocopy or print?
A photocopier used to be an indispensable tool for a writer. But
today’s photocopiers are just laser printers with a camera at-
tached. And as office laser printers have gotten faster, the photo-
copier has become less essential.
For text documents, copies made direct from the laser printer
will always look better than photocopies. The cost per page will
also be somewhat higher.
For image-intensive documents—for instance, scanned im-
ages—the photocopier will always be faster.
color or monochrome?
If I could have only one laser printer, it would be a color laser
printer. But I have two—one color, one monochrome—so I
know that the monochrome performance of a color laser printer
is not as good as a dedicated monochrome printer in the same
price range. This makes sense—a color laser printer is really
four laser printers sharing a single paper path.
If you truly never print color, there’s no need for a color
laser printer.
Though I have dissuaded you from using color for text in docu-
ments, it’s fine to use color images as illustrations or exhibits.
Beware—makers of color laser printers soft-pedal the costs of
color output, usually with optimistic assumptions about how
many pages a color toner cartridge will produce. Always check
the cost of replacement toner cartridges before buying a color
printer, and remember that every sheet of color output depletes
four cartridges simultaneously.
Also beware of entry-level color laser printers. While fine for
occasional use, they are easily overwhelmed by large image files
(for instance, photographs). Writers who rely on cheap color
printers usually find this out at an inopportune moment, like 20
minutes before a deadline.
duplex or simplex?
A duplex printer can print on both sides of a sheet of paper;
a simplex printer only prints on one side.
If you care at all about the environmental impact of printing, get
a duplex printer. A duplexing unit is often available as an acces-
sory for simplex printers. You don’t have to print fewer pages.
You’ll just be printing them on half the number of sheets of pa-
per. What’s not to like?
I shed a tear whenever someone sends me a document that’s not
printed duplex. That means I wipe a lot of tears. Folks, we have
the technology. Let’s use it.
One caveat: if you switch to duplex printing, you may need to
get paper that’s more opaque, so the printing on one side doesn’t
show through to the other.
paper
As noted above, laser printers work by depositing dry toner onto
paper and fusing it onto the paper using heated metal rollers. Pa-
per has a naturally uneven surface. The more uneven the surface,
the less well the toner adheres to the paper when it goes through
the rollers. (Think about sticking a stamp on an envelope vs.
sticking it on a brick.)
For best results, use the smoothest paper you can find. Choose
paper designated “laser” over paper designated “copy”
or “inkjet”—these varieties tend to be less smooth. I use Ham-
mermill Laser Print because it’s smooth, opaque, and very
bright. (Among papers, brightness measures how well the paper
reflects white light.)
If you go shopping for nicer paper at the stationery store (e.g., to
use as letterhead), choose wove paper, which is smooth, rather
than laid paper, which has a ribbed texture. Toner affixes better
to wove paper.