Chapter 8. The Paper Chase: Upgrading Printers and Scanners

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Understanding printers

• Installing a printer

• Installing a scanner

You've heard the old adage, garbage in, garbage out. Well, the garbage that comes out of your PC is reproduced by your system's printer sometimes in living color! Every computer system needs at least one printer, and sometimes two, especially if you print both text-heavy documents and colorful graphics or photographs. And, although some types of printers might be expensive, at least they're easy to hook up.

As to the garbage in part of the equation, one way to get garbage into your system is by scanning it. A scanner is pretty much the opposite of a printer; it takes printed copies of documents and pictures and converts them into digital format for storage on your PC's hard disk.

Interestingly, both printers and scanners connect to your system in a similar fashion. In fact, there are many all-in-one devices that combine printing and scanning (in many cases, faxing and copying, too) in a single unit. (And there's nothing wrong with having one less thing to connect to your PC!)