As any school or small business can attest, one of the most vital aspects of owning and operating a printer is ensuring that the consumables are of a high quality, are economical and are as long-lasting as possible.
For most modern printers and multi-function devices, the main consumable components are the toner cartridges, and a managed toner supply service can help remove the guesswork and frustration of running out of toner without a spare to hand.
It is rather understated just how much the toner cartridge changed printing, but to understand why this is the case, it is essential to know where it came from and why it was such a revolution compared to other printers of the time.
What Is A Toner Cartridge?
A toner cartridge is a replaceable consumable plastic cartridge which allows a compatible laser printer to print documents in a certain colour. Much like inkjet cartridges, toner cartridges are available in black, blue, pink and yellow, also known as CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Key).
A toner cartridge is filled with toner, a powdery mixture typically consisting of a colouring agent, carbon, plastic and other additives that can be electrically charged and transferred from a drum unit to a piece of paper, which is subsequently heated to fuse the document to the page.
This process, known as xerography, is at the core of photocopying and modern office printers, and toner cartridges are easier to use and less messy than manually filling a photocopier with toner as required.
Most toner cartridges vary in terms of the actual toner used, whether they have a print drum integrated into the cartridge or use two separate consumables, whether they can be refilled, and what form factor they use.
What Was The First Printer To Use Toner Cartridges?
The first printer to use toner cartridges, the HP LaserJet was also the first laser printer designed for widespread use.
The late 1970s and early 1980s were a period of considerable transition in the world of computing, as the rise of the microcomputer meant that every office desk, every school and potentially every home could afford a computer.
It changed the core word processing tool in the office from a typewriter to a computer, with the main benefit being that, whilst traditional photocopiers would lead to faded copies over time, a computer could permanently save documents and allow for higher quality and faster editing.
The problem with this was that there were two types of printers used at the time, and neither was especially ideal:
- Dot Matrix Printer – This technology uses print heads to strike at a ribbon of ink to produce text and images from thousands of tiny dots.
- Daisy Wheel Printer – This uses the same process found on typewriters, where a wheel with every letter and character required spins and is pressed into ink and onto paper.
Whilst both systems worked and were relatively cheap, neither was ideal.
Daisy wheel printers were as limited as typewriters, and did not allow for the use of multiple fonts, whilst dot matrix printers were low-quality and especially slow. Both were impact printers, which were inherently very slow to operate.
By contrast, the LaserJet and every laser printer from this point on was virtually silent, did not have the smudging issues that inkjet printers of the era had, and was exceptionally versatile in operation.
As well as this, unlike earlier xerographic printers, the LaserJet was the first to use cartridges for its toner, allowing for far better management of office supplies.
How Did Toner Cartridges Change Printing?
To say that the LaserJet changed the office is an understatement; the modern office would not exist without it, and to this day, even largely paper-free offices are structured around a central MFD with laser printing capabilities, due to the letter-quality output it provided.
It allowed for the use of digital letterheads without relying on a print service to create letter-headed documents, and it allowed for the printing of financial spreadsheets, digital
images, slideshows, memoranda, and even marketing materials.
It could use a variety of fonts, print in both portrait and landscape, had high print fidelity, and whilst the print speed was slow by modern standards at just eight pages per minute, it could be left to print all day whilst in the office due to how silent and reliable it was whilst running.
None of this would have been possible without the toner cartridge, and every modern photocopier and printer follows the same lead, evolving its key features and expanding with features such as print servers, collation, staples, lamination and bulk-scanning.