Best printer for coloring pages: laser vs inkjet at home

Almost any working printer can print a good coloring page, because a coloring page is only black lines on white paper. The printer type matters more for cost and hassle than for quality. If you print a lot of black line art and little else, a monochrome laser printer is the low-maintenance choice. If you also want photos, color activity sheets or the widest choice of paper, an inkjet (or an ink tank model) fits better. Whatever you own, the settings matter more than the brand: black only, normal quality, one-sided.

This guide is about choosing and running a printer. For the print dialog itself (scaling, gray lines, phone printing), see how to print coloring pages.

What a coloring page asks of a printer

A coloring page is an unusually easy print job:

• Solid black lines. No color, no photo shading, no fine gradients.
• Low coverage. Most of the sheet is white, so each page uses little ink or toner compared with a photo.
• Bursts of printing. Families tend to print ten pages on a rainy Saturday and then nothing for two weeks.
• Sometimes heavier paper. Light cardstock for markers or paint, which not every paper path handles.

Those last two points are where the printer types really differ.

Laser vs inkjet for line art

	Monochrome laser	Inkjet (cartridges)	Ink tank inkjet
Black line quality	Sharp, solid	Sharp at normal quality	Sharp at normal quality
Color pages and photos	No	Yes	Yes
Upfront price	Usually higher than a basic inkjet	Usually lowest	Compare against your print volume
Long gaps between prints	Toner powder, no ink to keep flowing	Uses some ink on maintenance	Uses some ink on maintenance
Thick paper and cardstock	Check the manual	Check the manual	Check the manual

Laser printers. Brother's comparison describes laser printers as using toner powder that is fused to the paper by heat, and for black-and-white printing it says to choose a monochrome laser printer. The same page notes that inkjet costs less upfront while laser offers lower long-term costs. For a household that prints mostly coloring pages, homework and forms, that is a good match: no color supplies to buy and no ink to keep flowing between print sessions.

Inkjet printers. Inkjets spray tiny droplets of ink and do color and photos well. The catch for occasional printing is maintenance ink. Epson's ink information page says all ink colors are used for printing and printer maintenance, all colors have to be installed to print, and all colors are used for maintenance even during extended black-only printing. It also says some printers run scheduled printhead cleaning cycles that consume ink, and that yields may be lower when printing infrequently. So an inkjet used for black coloring pages twice a month still spends some color ink keeping itself ready.

Ink tank printers. These are inkjets filled from bottles instead of cartridges. Epson's EcoTank page says its latest models include enough ink to last up to 3 years, and the footnote bases that on average monthly document volumes of about 125 to 150 pages, depending on model. If your household prints that much, a tank model can make sense. If you print twenty pages a month, the bigger upfront price takes longer to pay back. Epson's own savings page compares its tank models against cartridge printers at different monthly volumes and notes that actual savings vary with what and how much you print.

Brother's advice for picking between color and black-only is plain: if you will print primarily in black and white, a monochrome printer might be the way to go, and if you want colorful images and photos, a color printer is the better option.

How to work out cost per page yourself

Printer makers publish a rated page yield for each cartridge, toner or bottle. The math is one line:

cost per page = price of the supply / rated page yield

A few honest caveats before you trust the number:

1. Yields are measured on standard test pages. Epson explains that its cartridge yields follow the ISO/IEC 24711 and 24712 standards, printed continuously in default mode on plain paper. Your pages are not the test pages.
2. Coloring pages are lighter than the test pages in some ways and heavier in others. Thin outlines use little ink. A page with big black areas (a night sky, a black cat) uses far more.
3. Occasional printing lowers the yield. Epson says so directly on the same page.
4. Use the maker's own figures for your model. Look on the supply's product page or box for the rated yield. Do not compare one maker's estimate against another's marketing claim.

If you are deciding between two printers, run the math for both with each model's standard and high-yield supplies, then add the difference in purchase price.

Settings that save ink without ruining the lines

The cheapest page is the one you print once.

• Black only or grayscale. Stops a color printer from mixing colored inks into the black.
• Normal quality, not draft. Draft can leave lines faint and gray, and then you print the page again.
• Print a test page. One sheet first, then the stack.
• Avoid heavy black fills when you choose pages. For everyday printing, pick outline-only pages and save the big black-background ones for special occasions.
• Print in one batch. On an inkjet, a weekly batch is kinder to the nozzles than a page here and there.

Paper and the paper path

Check two numbers in your printer's manual before buying paper: the heaviest paper it accepts, and which tray to use for it. Many printers want cardstock through a rear or manual feed rather than the main drawer. The paper guide explains paper weights and which ones suit crayons versus markers.

If you do not want a printer at all

Plenty of families never buy one. Libraries and office supply stores print black-and-white pages for a per-page fee, and a print shop can do a whole book. The print shop guide covers what to ask for, and if you want to bind pages at home, see printing and binding a coloring book at home.

A Colorkin storybook arrives as a printable PDF of black line pages, so any of the printers above will handle it, laser or inkjet. There is also a printed keepsake version if you would rather skip the printer. For more on making and printing pages, see the make-your-own guides.

Questions parents ask