When it comes to gadgets, bigger is never better. Gadgets that are small and compact and which can work as well as their bigger counterparts are a plus for economy of space and portability. A small printer is the wish of many small office owners and those who work from a home office. There are many reasons why one would need a portable printer. You can print photos, reports, letters and other documents that often need to be changed on a whim.

Mobile and mini

Small printers fall into two categories. There is the mobile printer which is small and compact enough to fit in a backpack or a school bag. This kind of printer is especially a hit with amateur mobile photographers, business travellers and home workers. This printer uses miniaturized thermal printing. A mobile printer runs on DC power meaning it can be charged using a car battery or rechargeable batteries. A mobile printer is typically pricier than a standard mini printer.

Mini printers are not necessarily made for mobility but for lightweight and economy of space. These printers are popular with small offices, students and those who work in small spaces. The mini printer is ideal for printing the occasional document and scanning. Mini printers are cheap to purchase.

What are the top 10 small printers?

1.HP Sprocket photo printer

As the name indicates, this small printer is specially made for printing small sized photos. It can print wallet sized photos off the phone or tablet.

2.Polaroid zip photoprinter

This is another photo specialist printer. It is highly versatile, able to connect to smartphones, tablets and laptops. It is moderately fast, able to print a color photo in 45 seconds.

3.Epson PictureMate

This printer is continues Epson’s legacy for high quality photos. It can print 5×7 inch photos in high gloss.

4.Fujifilm Instax Share

The god thing about the instax share is that it shares pictures wirelessly instantly.

5.Brother PocketJet

The PocketJet is a high quality portable thermal printer that is good for printing high quality text.

6.HP OfficeJet 200 Mobile

This is a convenient inkjet printer offering high quality printing on the go. It is moderately fast ideal for slightly heavy duty printing.

7.Canon Selphy Wireless

This small printer wins points for multiple connection choices and very good quality prints. It also offers low printing costs per page.

8.HP OfficeJet 250 All-in-one

This portable printer offers more functionality as it can also scan and copy

9.Canon Pixma wireless

This printer is able to connect directly to different gadget including smartphones. It has unusually good quality photo.

10. Brother P-touch

This is a specialized portable printer for printing labels on laminated plastic.

What was that? Yes, a printer that will not use any ink or toner. This breakthrough technology is being developed at the University of Technology in Delft, Netherlands. The printer will make an impression on paper by making burn marks just like you would burn paper using a magnifying glass in sunlight. They are calling this kind of printing ‘Carbonisation.’

This printer will pass infra-red laser light through special magnifying glasses to burn the paper in a series of black dots. This is easier said than done as there are problems with making permanent burn marks as normally when paper is burnt, it produces soot marks that are easily rubbed off.

Venkatesh Chandrasekar, the leading innovator of this technology, says this will be possible because years of research have gone into coming up with a quality and color of ink and paper that will give blackness that is as the same as that of present ink and toner printing.

The researchers say one of the biggest challenges has been to get the right balance in laser beam intensity and structure and type of lances such that the beam makes only a burn mark but does not combust the paper. This can only be done by having the very uniform intensity of the laser beam on the area to be printed.

The intensity of the blackness of the print dot will be modulated by changing the pulse duration of the laser. Longer duration of the pulses at a certain spot will make a more intense burn dot. This has not been perfected and can be done in a trial and error. The user will set the required blackness to match black and white printing like done using ink and toner.

This Inkless and toneless technology is being commercialized by a company called Tocano. The company says it is optimistic of attracting players in the printing business. The technology has evident advantages that are very attractive for businesses and personal users alike.

The ink cartridge and laser toner will be eliminated such that businesses that do heavy printing will have a significant cost deleted from their budget. It is estimated that $14 billion is used for ink and toner. This is a significant reduction in costs seeing that this printer can print for an unlimited time using little else other than electric power.

There are also major environmental benefits in eliminating ink cartridges and toners which are very toxic when dumped after use. It is estimated that an ink cartridge could last up to 450 years before decomposing. This will take away a huge polluter of the environment.

Tocano says that their first focus are big industrial printers, for example, those who print on carton and cardboard boxes, or book printers.  The company will then move on to small office users and home users.

Father’s day is that time to show appreciation for the man who raised and molded you into what you are today. This is the man who showed simple stuff like tying your shoe laces to more complicated stuff like driving a car or shooting a gun. There are plenty of ways to thank this special man. Father’s day printable ideas are a good way of expressing appreciation ideas and simple wishes of good times and better health. The good thing is that printable ideas turn simple gifts into ones loaded with a lot of meaning and love. Here are some printable ideas for Father’s day.

Customized T-shirt

A customized T-shirt allows you to load it with much of what your dad likes. You could take a t-shirt and design it in the colors of his favorite team. Have his name stenciled on the back along with the number of his favorite player. A t-shirt is also a good canvas to write a meaningful message of love and appreciation like, ‘For the best Dad in the World for showing me how to play Soccer.’

Dad’s trophy

What better way to show your dad that he is the best than by giving him a trophy for it? You can design the one that is usually given to champions of his favorite sport. You could even give him several. There is no one to dispute that he is the champ of a father.

I love you because….booklet

Have everyone say something special about dad by making a booklet in which they can write down their special messages. It is like giving him a bunch of cards. Only with more loaded messages.

Dad’s special recipe book

What is dad’s favorite meal? There are a hundred ways to cook steak and potatoes. Make a recipe book with a special favorite meal for dad every week for the whole year. This is one he definitely won’t forget every time he tucks into his favorite dish.

Superdad poster

Dad is a superman. Have a big size painting or drawing of dad in a Superman costume. Better yet, buy a costume and make a portrait of him.

Best Dad in Class Diploma

Your dad made you what you are. He passed the daddy class with flying colors. Make him a colored diploma showing he is the best dad in class.

Father Medal of Honor

Dad is a great warrior. He went beyond all odds to make sure that you got fed, clothed and schooled. For that effort beyond the call of duty, give him a Medal of Honor.

If you are buying a printer for a home use of a small office, it makes sense to buy an All in One Printer.  This is a machine that can scan, make copies and print from the computer. The standard features for a printer are getting more sophisticated each year. Current printers are able to print over a wireless connection as well as from portable flash memory in addition to printing over USB. There are several considerations to make when deciding the best machine for your use.

Inkjet vs. laser

For small time quality printing an inkjet printer is the best while large volumes of same color or black and white printing are best done by a laser printer.

Ink type

Dye based inks are best for printing text while pigment based inks are best for printing glossy pages like photos.

Paper size

Most printers are limited to A4 size pages but if you are in designing, you may need an A3 printer

Color vs. Black and White

Do you need to print your own brochures or specially designed work, or do you print plain text?

Extra features

Do you need extra features? These include wireless connectivity, LCD touch control, Near Field Communication printing and printing from flash. These would depend on your home or office configuration. If you don’t like wire tangling, wireless printing can be handy.

With these considerations, some of the best printers of 2017 include:

• Epson Workforce Pro WF-5690- This is a good AIO printer for small offices that need to print a lot but need color once in a while. It is a fast inkjet printer with good quality output.
• Brother MFC-J6920DW – This is the AIO printer for a medium business. It can print high volumes at low cost due to Brother’s inexpensive ink cartridge technology. It has an added advantage of printing wide 11in x 17 in pages.
• Epson Workforce ET-4550- Epson has used Eco tank technology in this inkjet printer. It offers one of the lowest costs per page. It is a low volume all in one printer that is suitable for a small business or home office.
• Canon ImageClass LBP151w- This is one of the few mono laser printers to make the top on the account of its speed and above-average print quality making it suitable for a small office with high printing volumes.
• HP OfficeJet 250 – This very lightweight all in one printer that the advantage of portability. HP’s long experience in print technology can be seen in the high quality print offered by this small printer.

Digital photography is a leap in capturing images. Instead of capturing image on film, it is stored as a series of zeros and ones on digital memory. This makes it easier to manipulate, share and store. The biggest headache to a digital photographer remains in getting an image in the correct resolution.

Resolution at work

Images in digital format are captures in a series of dots called pixels. These dots are represented on digital memory as a series of ones and zeroes. Resolution is measured by how many pixels are there in an inch. The more pixels there are in an inch, the higher the resolution.  The average computer LCD monitor has 67-130 pixels per inch.

Sometimes you will capture good looking photos but which come out badly when the photo is printed. This is a mismatch between the resolution and the size of the paper. This is seen where some parts of the photo will look like blocks of L.  This is called pixilation.

Print size

Digital camera resolutions are set by adjusting aspect ratio settings.  The common aspect ratio settings are 3:2 and 4:3.  Other settings can be 5:4, 16:9, and 1:1.  An aspect ratio of 3:2 can have 300×200 pixels or 900×600 or 1200×800 pixels.

Photographic prints come in aspect ratios of 4×6, 5×7, 8×10, and 20×30. The aspect ratio determines the print size. The aspect ratio that can go with a specific print size is found by interchanging the number of the print size and then looking for the lowest number. For example a print size of 4×6 works with an aspect ratio of 3:2.  Others are

Printing on paper

Pixilation occurs when there is a mismatch of the print size and the paper size. When printed on paper, pixels need to close together in higher concentration than on a digital screen. Printing a 4×6 photo on an 8×10 paper will result in pixilation as the photo will be printed on a much larger area which spreads the pixels much more making them looser.

A pixilation problem cannot be fixed by setting the printer to print at higher dpi (dots per inch). This is because the original pixels remain as fixed in the same concentration as they were in the original image. Printing at higher dpi only makes those in place come out larger.

Basically when shooting your digital photos, you must know what size of paper you will be printing on before you start the shoot. Lower resolution will look good on smaller size paper and vice versa.

If you are buying ink cartridge or laser toner for the first time, there are several differences that may not be immediately clear cut. The difference between dye and pigment ink is one that many ink cartridge buyers ask about. What is the difference between dye-based ink and pigment based inks and when should you use one and not the other?

Dye based inks

These inks are used in the standard ink cartridges. This kind of ink contains dyes that are fully dissolved in liquid. The biggest advantage of dye-based inks is their vibrancy in color. The colors come out better because there are optical compounds that are in the dye.

Their biggest disadvantage is smearing. If the cartridge is leaking or releasing ink in the wrong quantities, the paper will smear. Dye based ink dissolves into the paper fibers, and spreads very thinly. This makes it susceptible to damage by UV rays. This leads to quicker fading if the paper is exposed to the sun or a lot of daylight. However, fade resistance has been improved in high-quality inks from companies such as Fuji and Hp.

Where to use

Dye based ink has long been used in the standard ink cartridge for home and office use. It can print standard text and also graphics in official documents for example color graphs. This has been the preferred ink by heavy duty printers.

Pigment inks

Pigment is a powdery substance that makes a suspension when mixed with liquid. Unlike dye-based ink, the pigment does not get dissolved in the paper’s fibers. Rather, it sits on the paper and bonds to the paper’s surface in a very thin film. This technology was debuted by Epson.

The biggest advantage of pigment ink is that it does not fade easily. Pigment does not break down easily under UV rays. This means it retains color vibrancy longer than dye-based ink.  Pigment inks do not smear easily. As such the ink is ideal for printing on glossy paper like photographic paper. This type of ink tends to be costlier than dye based ink. Poor quality pigment inks have the problem of metamerism. This is where the human eye sees different colors for the same graphics when it is subjected to different light sources.

Where to use

Pigment inks are used in printing on glossy paper, transparencies and stickers. Its longer archival life is preferred for graphics. Some printing experts have claimed that its archival life could be as long as 200 years.

In the age of 32 GB flash memory, who cares to print the thousands of photos on the seemingly infinite memory?  Buying photographic paper these days is such a headache as very few book stores have it in stock. There are no takers. We are content thinking that photos stored on hard drives, flash memory drives and DVDs will last forever. There are a few kinks in this argument. Here is why you should suddenly feel an urge to print your photos.

Software rot

How does software rot? Unlike the obsolescence of the floppy disk, software rot is not physical wear and tear of your digital storage. Instead, it stands for mismatch of technologies over time. For example, most documents done with older formats in Windows 98 will refuse to open if you tried today. This is because the software standards are markedly different. As time goes by, different graphics formats will come up rendering the good old jpeg format obsolete, and your photos with it.

Physical damage

Although digital storage is vastly improved than 15 years ago, digital memory is still a fickle thing. Your flash will all of a sudden fail to open because you ignorantly stuck it in a computer that was laden with a virus. Your computer hard drive can be fried by an electric surge. Your DVDs could suffer scratching. There are many things that can happen to your digital storage to render it unusable and lose your photos forever. Printing on paper gives you alternative backup.

Perfect your skills

Instagram and Photoshop make hopeless photographers look very good with the use of filters and other enhancements. A digital screen will cover up many mistakes. Printing, on the other hand, will make you see your mistakes in lighting and other technicalities you must adjust to bring colors to life. By trying repeatedly for the perfect shot instead of using filters, you become a better photographer.

It feels good

Human nature is wired to feel good when rewarded with tangible beautiful things. That is why you give your loved one flowers instead of a picture of flowers. By printing your best photos, you have something to lay your hands on. You can look at the end results of your toil with a smug feeling of having done something useful

Gifts

What will you give your kid to remember you when going away to college, a link to your IG? Likely not. But you could give her a print photo of her when her milk teeth were just coming out. Perfect.

The feel of good old paper still feels good in the hands.  Decorative paper, books and other interesting information is still made of paper. Gifting something that can help the special women in our lives get joy from printables is the best idea for mother’s day. The printer and ink toner combo is a great idea as it can help your loved one print what she has longed to put on paper and express her loving care in written words.

Why are toners great gift ideas?

A printer can be used anywhere and anyone. Home printers are very common these days.  Your aunt who still believes in the power of the hard copy will want to print that email she has waited to read but can’t because she hates the computer monitor.

Printers can be used to print the occasional menu downloaded from Pinterest, or the weight loss workout that your partner needs to take to the gym.  A printer in the home or office will find good use.

You can buy a printer for anyone. Your busy career partner or wife will find it useful to print the report in the work carried home. Your mom will find it useful for printing eBooks she has wanted to read. Your sister will use it to print essays for school. All the special women in your life will find a printer very useful.

Printers are practical gifts that say you have put some thought into choosing the gift. Instead of a luxurious gift, a printer is an item that will keep reminding the owner of you over the years. As long as it is printing, your presence will be felt.

A printer is a long-lasting gift. The lifetime of a busy printer is about 3-5 years. A home printer that is not heavily used can last up to 7 years and more. It is the perfect gift that keeps on giving.

Some gift ideas

• Epson Expression Home XP-420 printer: This is a small portable and powerful printer that will print high quality documents and photos. It can connect to phones and other devices over Wifi and print from Google docs and Apple cloud.
• Brother MFC-J470DW printer: This is a multifunction inkjet printer for the office and home; it works well with affordable ink refills.
• HP 62 Black Original Ink Cartridges (C2P04AN). This cartridge works with  a wide range of HP printers and can print up to 200 pages
• Brother Printer TN660 High Yield Toner. This cartridge can print up to 2600 pages.
• E-Z Ink (TM) Remanufactured Ink Cartridge Replacement for Epson 252XL High Capacity (2 Black, 1 Cyan, 1 Magenta, 1 Yellow) 5 Pack. This ink toner can be refilled for printing more than 3000 pages.