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Ask HN: How have you used a printer in your home or office?
I haven't owned an inkjet or laser printer in over 10 years.
I can think of a few mundane things I could print on occasion (notes, websites, pictures), and laser printers are temptingly cheap.
How have you used a printer in your home or office?
Is there a particular usage that is valuable to you which you might recommend to others?
- pwg 2y ago> How have you used a printer in your home or office? Primarily for printing mailing labels to attach to packages. Sometimes to print forms that need to be submitted in paper.
- Dutchie987 2y agoThere are documents (tax, receipts, insurance,...) that I have to keep for a long time. I print a copy for my filing cabinet rather than store them on disk (or online).
- iwanttocomment 2y agoI look at my printer like I look at my checkbook. Most of the time, completely irrelevant. Two or three situations a year, it is massively convenient to have - and it doesn't cost me anything. I wouldn't buy a printer until you hit a pain point where you're confident you need a printer, though.
- cranberryturkey 2y agoits good for scanning docs you have signed and emailing out.
- toomuchtodo 2y agoBrother monochrome laserjet. Lasts forever. Documents requiring a signature, school materials (homeschooled), shipping labels, documents to annotate to be scanned in and sent off, etc. After a few runs to a FedEx Office where you can send a document to be retrieved and printed with a code at a terminal attached to a copier, considering the value of time and the cost of those prints per pages, ~$125 is a no brainer for something that will last 5-10 years at least. Comes out to $20-$30/year with some supplies in there (paper, toner).
- erik_seaberg 2y agoBrother was good for a long time but they seem to now lock out competing ink and/or toner cartridges with DRM: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131. I suppose I'll get an Epson ink tank next. Brother's USB drivers have also dropped support for some old models, though I guess newer hardware all uses IPP (until that goes obsolete).
- bediger4000 2y agoI have a Kyocera P2235dw laser printer. I like to read scientific papers on paper, reading comprehension is better, you can scribble notes on them. I also print recipes. It's hard to scroll around a touchscreen with wet or greasy or floury fingers. Also I make notes on recipes.
- montgomery_r 2y agoWe have an HP bw laserjet at home with PostScript and crucially a duplexer. I bought it used about 10 years ago for £200. We don’t print much, around 15,000pp so far. Generally I print: - in the last month, a lot of past papers as my son prepares for Summer exams - PDF articles for reading on the train - multiple drafts of documents I write to scribble edits on ( could I do that on the iPad? Sort of.) - address labels - bookplates - online recipes ( easier with messy fingers than the iPad!) I’d guess we print something every week, sometimes more frequently. Printing 2-up duplex for the most part has saved a lot of paper. Replaced the toner for the second time in feb ‘22 ( the printer tells me) - with an off brand cartridge; print quality noticeably but not disastrously worse, but the cartridge was £30 rather than £130. Amazon Basics 80gsm paper better and cheaper than the HP or Canon versions.
- ewgfdgdfgdf 2y ago[flagged]