Determining appropriate paper thickness for your printer
There are a good many types and models of printers available on the market. If you add the fact that paper comes in a lot of sizes and weights as well, things can get pretty complicated sometimes and you may risk ruining your printer if you fed it with paper it isn’t compatible with.
Choosing the correct paper is also important to ensure clear prints, robust colours, crisp and clear images as well as minimise paper jams and bleeding or overconsumption of ink.
So how do we determine if the thickness of a paper is suitable for a particular printer?
First and most importantly, check the printer’s manual and specifications. Each printer type has a corresponding paper compatible to it — everyday paper for desktop printers, inkjet paper for inkjet printers, laser paper for laser printers and so on. Bear in mind that each printer has a maximum paper thickness it can accommodate, be sure to check the manual if what you’re about to feed it meets the model specifications otherwise you risk serious damage to your machine.
Look for keywords such as paper weight, thickness, and media type to determine the type of paper it can handle (e.g. card stock, Text paper, photo paper, envelopes, labels). In some models the paper specifications are written on the machine itself or indicated as choices in the tray paper settings.
What if we already misplaced or tossed the manual?
Thankfully some very industrious and nostalgic individuals still care about collecting manuals from even long-phased out models of appliances and gadgets and gathered about 700,000 of them ranging from laptops through to televisions and power tools on manualsonline.com, a website that’s very convenient for those with the habit of having manuals as scratch papers or paper shredder-testers.
After checking the printer specs, take a look at the paper specs on its packaging to see if they support the type of printer you’ve got. If you’ve got a promising match on your hands, it’s now time to set up a date for them on your printer. If you aren’t ready to commit to a large-scale purchase for a paper you’re not sure will work well with your printer, ask for samples across a range of sizes, brightness, opacity and weights before deciding on “the one”.
This article originally appeared in:
http://www.theofficesuppliessupermarket.com/articles/determining-paper-thickness-for-your-printer
