Before you buy any sort of printer I advise you to make sure that the cartridges used in the printer are easily obtained and do not cost too much. In my experience it is easy to get cartridges for Epson, Hewlett Packard and Canon printers at reaonable prices. Several companies refurbish print head cartridges - mainly Hewlett Packard and Canon. I have not seen comparable supplies of cartridges for other makes.

There are basically two types of inkjet printer that can print in colour. The Epson type has a fixed print head and the Hewlett Packard type that has (mostly) print heads in the cartridges. Canon produces printers of both types and a halfway system with a removable print head unit that takes small cartridges. The fixed print head printer uses cheaper cartridges that are only ink tanks. It has one drawback. If the printer is only used occasionally, the print head can dry out and become blocked. The printer is then likely to be very difficult to get going again. It is very hard to clear a blocked fixed print head. The printer that has print heads in the cartridges can also suffer from a blocked print head. If this should happen, only a cartridge is lost. Print head cartridges cost more than the ink tank type but often contain more ink .

The method shown pictorially is mainly based on my experience with refilling HP deskjet cartridges. I also include information about using special cleaning cartridges for Epson printers.