The Absolute Basics of Printer Paper

It’s a well-known fact that the cartridge is the most important component of a printer. No one knows this better than us. The reason for this is fairly simple. You can’t print anything without ink or toner and these substances cannot be carried by anything other than cartridges. Furthermore, more than anything else, the quality of your print will depend upon the quality and composition of the ink or toner you’re using. This is why printer cartridges are considered to be the most important.

However, just because printer cartridges are the “most” important component doesn’t mean that they’re self-sufficient too. You can’t print something with just ink and toner right. Ink and toner like all heroes need a sidekick. The role of the sidekick is played by the printer paper

The role of all sidekicks is to help all heroes look good. For instance, even the most high quality ink or toner will only be able to achieve so much with a mediocre or substandard quality printer paper. So, it can be said that the printer paper plays an important role in ensuring that your print quality remains good.

Considerations Pertaining To the Printer Paper

Despite the importance of printer paper, a lot of people only focus on getting the right ink or toner cartridges. If you’ve been using mediocre paper and bad cartridges, then buying high quality ink cartridges from a reliable seller like us will result in your print quality improving drastically.

This is what most printer users see. Their automatic conclusion is that they only needed to buy high quality ink or toner cartridges.

While we’ll happily take the credit for your printer’s print quality improving drastically through our ink and toner cartridges, we think that you can take this a step further.

If our high quality ink and toner cartridges can give you such exceptional print quality, then just imagine what they can do if you ply them with high quality printer paper too!

We’ve already covered the importance of printer paper with a post on inkjet photo paper. In that article, we explained all the technical aspects that you should consider with regard to inkjet photo paper. A lot of what was said in that post, however, would also be relevant to normal printer papers. So, we won’t repeat those suggestions and advice here. Instead, we’ll cover some simple tips pertaining to printer papers.

Don’t Use Printer Papers That Have Been Changed Physically

While the phrase “changed physically” may seem a little confusing initially, it wouldn’t if we explain a little. What we mean by this is that you should not use printer papers that are not flat.

Oftentimes, many people tend to use folded, taped, stapled, or torn printer papers for myriad of reasons. The noblest of these reasons is environmental where the printer owners don’t want to waste any paper in the hope that their efforts would slow down environmental deterioration.

The most practical of these reasons is simply that printer papers can be expensive, especially if the printer is used regularly. Saving even half pages can add up to significant savings in the long term.

Regardless of whatever your reasons may be, it is advisable that you don’t use printer papers that have been changed physically. By using printer papers that are not flat and whole as they are meant to be, you are risking paper jamming problems.

These problems seem fickle and small initially but they do damage your printer’s components if they occur too often. So, it would simply be better if you get rid of physically changed papers and use fresh sheets.

Avoid Printer Papers Which Are Textured

Recently, in our “How To” section, we explained how you can use your printer to actually print out your own customised, personalised, and specialised wedding invitations. It’s a very useful and innovative use for a printer that most owners fail to even recognise, leave alone try.

However, the ones who do try and succeed with printing their own wedding invitations at home can get carried away with it too. Next time, they may want to try textured printer papers for their wedding invitations thinking that they can print as well as professional printers.

However, most printers are not capable of handling textured or grooved papers. The textures, grooves, and any lack of smooth surface can make the print heads go wonky. It can not only result in the paper and ink or toner getting wasted because of bad prints but also the printer getting damaged.

Chemically Finished Printer Papers Can Be Dangerous

Chemically finished papers are also a strict no-no, if you have any respect or love for your printer. There is no knowing what kind of damage a chemically finished paper can cause to your printer. It all depends on the types of chemicals used to finish the particular paper and how they react with the ink and toner.

Even if the ink and toner doesn’t react with the chemicals on the surface of the chemically finished paper, there are other damages that can occur. For instance, chemically finished papers almost always leave some kind of residue on the rollers of the printer. This can cause serious problems later.

Even if the rollers don’t pick up the residue, the print heads can get damaged while transferring ink or toner to the surface of the chemically finished paper. So, it’s better to simply avoid chemically finished papers altogether rather than try them and hope that nothing happens.

Inkjet Photo Paper Can Be Used For Top Quality Prints

This is a fairly well-known aspect of printer papers. Within the segment of printer papers, there is no variety of paper that boasts of better quality than inkjet photo paper.

Photo papers, in fact, are not only better than normal printer papers when it comes to print quality but also when it comes to durability and resistance to smudging or fading.

Some photo papers are actually designed to last longer than all other types of printer papers.

What all this means is that if you are looking for the absolute best option, then you shouldn’t look further than inkjet photo paper.

Use Standard Printer Papers with Weight and Thickness At or Below Recommendations

Printers come with printer manuals that contain recommendations inside. While you can ignore many of these recommendations with guidance from experts, you should not even think about deviating from the recommendations without such guidance.

For example, when our customers as us which compatible ink or toner cartridges they can use with their specific printer model, we can advise them because we’ve been in the printing industry for nearly four decades.

This advice has been tested on the anvil of experience, which is also the reason why we haven’t had dissatisfied customers. In the case of printer papers, unless you have some expert advisor who you can trust, you should never think about ignoring the Original Equipment Manufacturers’ (OEM) recommendations.

You should stick to using standard printer papers wherein the weight and thickness of every sheet either matches the recommended number provided by the OEM or is below. If you try use papers with higher thickness or weight than what is recommended, then you run the risk of your printer getting damaged. At the very least, your print quality won’t be anywhere near what you want.