Printer Ink

With prices becoming more and more cost-effective, printers are as commonplace as computers in homes around the country, and as a result, prices for printer ink have also gotten more competitive. Inkjet ink comes in disposable plastic cartridges, in a single or multicolor ink format. Single ink cartridges have 1 ink color inside, and multicolor ink cartridges have 3 ink colors inside. (There are also twin-packs and multi-packs available which include the 2, 3, 4 or more cartridges needed by those printers.) Conventional color inkjet printers require a pair of cartridges — one black and one multicolor — or sets of multiple single-color cartridges to reproduce a wide range of shades and color variations.

Multi-ink printers typically have four single-color ink cartridges for the cyan, magenta, yellow and black (CMYK) color scheme employed in the printing process, but printers that are geared toward photos may use six or more cartridges (such as light cyan and light magenta) to provide more nuanced color reproduction. Even if you only intend to utilize black printer ink on a color printer, most printers require all colors to be available for printing. You'll also need color ink for printer maintenance tasks like alignment and diagnostics.

All printer ink cartridges are designed to work with a particular brand, line or series of printers, and your best bet for determining the specific, compatible ink cartridges you need is to read the owner's manual that came with your printer. You can also use Best Buy's online ink finder. If you're printing a series of high-resolution images, logos, or pictures, you may want to have photo paper at hand to maximize output quality.

Once your printer is set up and you have determined which printer ink cartridges you need, you may want to consider some other related business furniture and machines to round out the capabilities of your home office. For example, to go along with your robust printer capability, you may want to add a file cabinet to keep your paperwork organized and your office clutter-free. At the other end of the spectrum, a paper shredder may be useful to keep confidential documents away from unauthorized or prying eyes. Another way to go is to digitize older or sensitive documents and paperwork with a document scanner for secure storage on your computer or on a jump drive, so you can keep them organized and protected.