Virtually all printers use one of two printing methods: laser or inkjet. Structurally, the difference between a laser printer and an inkjet printer can best be explained by the way they apply ink to paper.

Inkjet printers use tiny nozzles to spray liquid ink onto paper in microscopic dots. Laser printers melt powdered ink, called toner, onto paper using heated rollers.

Laser printers tend to create sharper text, because toner does not bleed into paper the way ink does. Inkjet printers tend to create higher-quality color documents and photos, because they can create more nuanced color gradients than a laser printer, which prints one color at a time. For example, professional photographers exclusively use high-resolution inkjets, and print on specialty paper that resists bleeding.