The real question is "when did you stop using inkjet printers", the answer to which is "a long time ago". I got a Deskjet 500 when those were fresh and managed to never buy an "official" (i.e. expensive) cartridge for the thing, instead using a syringe+needle and a jar of fountain pen ink to refill the thing. When the local Aldi supermarket dumped some HP colour inkjets I got one and used it for a few weeks until the ink ran out. For that printer HP had learned their lesson and made it nigh impossible to refill the cartridge so back into the carton the printer went never to be used again. I reverted to the Deskjet 500 and fountain pen ink until I got a Laserjet 2200 DTN from some job which was about to throw it out because of a broken fuser sleeve. One new fuser sleeve later I entered the wondrous world of toner-based printers and never looked back. This is some 20 years ago now, the Laserjet still works but it recently got relegated to emergency duty when I got a Canon MF9220CDN for free due to similar reasons. One new black toner cartridge later we entered the wondrous world of toner-based colour copy-printers, we will see if we end up looking back. The thing is ridiculously over-specified for our use but since it only uses 1W in standby - less than the Laserjet - that does not really matter. It takes up space but makes good for that by including a scanner. A toner cartridge which is supposed to last for ~6000 pages (i.e. years worth of printing for us) costs around €20-€30, a full set of 4 around €80-90. I have 2 black cartridges so I'm set for a number of years...
Ask HN: When did you stop using a printer and why?
71–78 of 78 posts
Re: Ask HN: When did you stop using a printer and why?
#72I use a Dymo label printer for shipping labels, and a Brother laser printer for packing slips almost every day for my small business. Both connected to my Proxmox machine running cupsd, printing from all platforms in my household; Android, iOS, Linux, Mac, all work fine, I print remotely though a WireGuard tunnel when not at home.
>I use a Dymo label printer for shipping labels, and a Brother laser printer for packing slips almost every day for my small business. I print the packing slips with the shipping labels on the label printer.
Honestly, I had never even considered that and now I feel silly!
We already had the scanner+printer cause my partner works remotely, and I just assumed the cost for toner and A4 was cheaper than thermal label.
Re: Ask HN: When did you stop using a printer and why?
#73When I started signing PDF documents with a graphic tablet instead of printing, signing and scanning them each time.
That was always silly wasn't it? A few decades ago I scanned my signature. I place it on a pdf with gimp and output as jpg or png then return.
I do the using Xournal [1] which is tailor-made for creating annotations. It leaves the PDF as is, saving your edits to a sidecar file (*.xoj) which when loaded pulls in the original PDF. It exports edited documents to 'real' PDFs with selectable text etc.
[1] https://xournal.sourceforge.net/ (packaged by most distributions)
Re: Ask HN: When did you stop using a printer and why?
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
That was always silly wasn't it? A few decades ago I scanned my signature. I place it on a pdf with gimp and output as jpg or png then return.
I do the using Xournal [1] which is tailor-made for creating annotations. It leaves the PDF as is, saving your edits to a sidecar file (*.xoj) which when loaded pulls in the original PDF. It exports edited documents to 'real' PDFs with selectable text etc. [1] https://xournal.sourceforge.net/ (packaged by most distributions)
Neat, will remember if I really need a pdf.
Re: Ask HN: When did you stop using a printer and why?
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do the using Xournal [1] which is tailor-made for creating annotations. It leaves the PDF as is, saving your edits to a sidecar file (*.xoj) which when loaded pulls in the original PDF. It exports edited documents to 'real' PDFs with selectable text etc. [1] https://xournal.sourceforge.net/ (packaged by most distributions)
Neat, will remember if I really need a pdf.
Xournalpp is also worth a look. It's almost identical but with a few additional little features. Either way I can recommend both, not just for PDF annotation but also taking notes with a pen.
Re: Ask HN: When did you stop using a printer and why?
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I use a Dymo label printer for shipping labels, and a Brother laser printer for packing slips almost every day for my small business. I print the packing slips with the shipping labels on the label printer.
Honestly, I had never even considered that and now I feel silly! We already had the scanner+printer cause my partner works remotely, and I just assumed the cost for toner and A4 was cheaper than thermal label.
>Honestly, I had never even considered that and now I feel silly!
You may find this interesting. https://np.reddit.com/r/Flipping/comments/wtxtv7/print_shipp...>
>I just assumed the cost for toner and A4 was cheaper than thermal label.
I can't speak for elsewhere, but in the US, both FedEx and UPS provide thermal label rolls for free to those with accounts.
Re: Ask HN: When did you stop using a printer and why?
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's one in the house, centrally located. Could be done, but would make it dependent on one computer. Our desks are small as well. :-(
Use a small computer (Raspberry Pi? OpenWrt router? etc) as a proxy to network the printer in a safe way.
Great idea!
Re: Ask HN: When did you stop using a printer and why?
#78As a student I don't expect to be mostly done with one for the next couple years. Even once I'm done, I will still probably have an all-in-one copy/printer since I do occasionally require one for various things, such as making a copy of an important document, or whatnot.