How to Increase Print Speed

Printer speeds can vary wildly depending on the type of top-rated printer you have, what you are printing, and a variety of other factors.

What is the Average Printing Speed?

When it comes to inkjet printers, you can expect an average printing speed of around 12 to 20 pages per minute (PPM.) Laser printers tend to be much faster than inkjet printers, with an average printing speed of 20 to 40 PPM, though some office-grade laser printers can print up to 200 PPM. Printing is not the only thing you can do with a printer, you can also scan a photograph to your computer.

Speed Up Your Printer

You don’t have to buy a whole new printer to increase your overall printing speed. There are some tips and tricks you can do to tweak the speed of your printer.

Maintain and Clean Your Printer

One of the first things you should do to increase the speed of your printer is to regularly clean and maintain its various components. This process will be different depending on your printer model, but we would recommend using a lint-free cloth of some kind to wipe down each component. You will also want to run a self-clean cycle, which can typically be accessed via the printer’s settings menu. As a warning, running an auto-clean cycle will use up a fair bit of ink or toner dust.

Replace Your Cartridges

If an ink cartridge is close to depletion, it may slow down the printing process. Check on the status of your ink or toner cartridge in your printer’s menu and replace it if necessary. Generally speaking, an ink cartridge will need to be replaced after it has printed 100 to 200 pages, while a toner cartridge will need to be replaced after it has printed 800 to 1,000 pages. If your cartridge still has plenty of life left in it, we recommend that you clean and maintain the cartridge itself by using a lint-free cloth. Remember that you should first check whether your cartridge is either laser or inkjet before you replace it.

Adjust the Settings

If you really want to speed up your printer, you will have to find the optimal settings within your printer’s system menu. Generally speaking, you will want to minimize the overall resolution so as to speed up the printing process. This can be something of a tightrope act, as making the resolution too low will impact the look of the documents. Experiment with different settings to find your sweet spot.

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