To further differentiate various printers, you can break them down to impact and non-impact. One other example is formed character printer. The way that these work is by forcing a metal or plastic character against an inked ribbon to produce a sharp image on paper. These characters may be on a moving bar, a rotating ball, a rapidly rotating chain, or wheel spokes. Although noisy, impact printers can produce multiple copies of business forms simultaneously using carbon or carbonless techniques.

Non-impact printers use thermal and electrostatic, rather than mechanical, techniques, such as ink-jet, laser, bubble-jet, and others mentioned above. Non-impact printers are quieter than impact printers and produce higher quality output, especially of graphics, but at a greater cost per page of course. Whatever one you choose, printers are an integral part of everyone's life!

2. Choose black and white printing over color when possible. Depending on your printer, you may have option to select grayscale printing using black ink cartridge only. If you're not doing presentation quality work, chances are you won't need other colors.

3. If you're dealing with a long document, print two sheets to a page if you can. Your printer may allow you to print two pages side by side in 'landscape' orientation -- and you'll save on paper costs too.

4. Modern personal printers can produce high quality photographs, particularly if you use specialist photo paper. But printing high quality digital shots can use a lot of ink -- so think about outsourcing your photo printing to a local print center. Many services allow you to order your prints online and can mail them to you if you can't collect them yourself. You can often have your photos printed on calendars, mouse mats or greeting cards, if you wish.

Reduce your inkjet or toner costs by economizing on ink when you can -- and keep your ink supplies ready for those occasions when high quality presentation counts.

Nigel Patterson is a business writer and the publisher of Printer Ink 2u.com.