Some of the Terms in Printers and Consumables

Ink Cartridge

An ink cartridge or inkjet cartridge is a component of an inkjet printer  that contains the ink that is deposited onto paper during printing.

Each ink cartridge contains one or more ink reservoirs;  producers also add electronic contacts and a chip  that communicates with the printer.

Toner Cartridge

Toner cartridge, also called laser toner, is the consumable component of a  Laser Printer. Toner cartridges contain toner  powder, a fine, dry mixture of plastic particles, carbon, and black or other coloring agents that make the actual image on the paper. 

The toner is transferred to paper via an electrostatically  charged drum unit, and fused onto the paper by heated rollers during the printing process.  

CMYK

Cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. CMYK is a Colour model in which all colors are described as a combination of these four   colors.  

 

Compatible cartridges

Compatible cartridge refers to a cartridge that is not manufactured by the original manufacturer of your printer.  

 

Remanufactured cartridges

Remanufactured cartridges are   previously used branded cartridges that have been professionally cleaned, refilled with comparable-quality toner or ink, and tested to use it again.

 Print Head

Printhead is a printer component that helps transfer ink onto the page. It does this by firing tiny droplets of ink via numerous printer nozzles to create a desired print. When one of these nozzles gets clogged your prints appear faded or streaky

Drum Cartridge or Drum Unit

Drum unit is a green metal cylinder or tube that carries a static electrical charge that attracts the toner powder from the toner cartridge and applies it to the paper as it passes through the printer. Therefore, you will always find that drum unit is located very close to or even attached to the toner cartridge.

DPI

Dots per Inch : is a measurement of printer resolution. This indicates how many ink dots the printer can fit in a square inch.  DPI impacts on the quality of the images that your printer and cartridges can print. The higher the DPI, the sharper and better the printed image quality.

 

Duplex

Duplex printing is a feature in some printers that allows   printing of a sheet of paper on both sides (double-sided). It is a great feature to   save time and money.

 

Generic toner cartridges

Generic cartridges is an another word for compatible   cartridges. These are cartridges which have not been manufactured by the original manufacturer of your printer but will function in the same way.

 

Page yield

Page yield refers to the estimated number of pages that can be printed with a  printer cartridge.

 

 

PPI

This stands for “pixels per inch” and is a term used to define the quality of the scan for those machines that have scanning capability.   The higher the number, the better the result.

 

PPM

This means “pages per minute” and refers to the speed at which the printer can print out completed pages of print.  Color Printers have two PPM ratings, one for the speed of printing black and white only and another for the speed of printing   Colour pages.

 

Wireless direct printing

Wireless direct printing or Wi-Fi Direct   allows your Wi-Fi capable devices such as smart phones, tablets, or computers to make a wireless network connection directly to your printer without using a wireless router or access point.

NFC Printing

Near field communication printing, also known as NFC printing, brings together devices within a close proximity. NFC technology is found on many portable devices and it allows radio connection with other devices such as smartphones, tablets and printers.

The NFC (Near Field Communication) feature allows to directly print from a cell phone by holding the cell phone over the NFC tag on the printer