Printers for Mapping Software

At some point, you’re probably going to want to print a digital map. Expensive plotters and large format printers are important for a professional mapmaker, but any printer that can output the map in a readable fashion is fine for the average computer user. However, some printers are more suited for digital mapping than others.

• Color printers: Black-and-white printers are perfectly suitable for printing maps, but color output is usually easier to read and understand, especially when using topographic maps. A colored map produced on a cheap inkjet printer might be more useful than a crisp black-and-white map that came from an expensive laser printer. When cartographers make maps, they design them to be either black and white or color. Important information can be lost when a map program translates a color map into the inherent shades of gray in black and white.
• Resolution: The higher the print resolution in dots per inch (dpi), the better the map will appear; especially for maps that show a lot of detail. Printers designed for printing digital photos work quite well in representing topographic and other detailed maps.
• Print speed: Some printers are faster than others, and a faster printer means you get to see and use your printed map quicker. Printers are rated in pages per minute (ppm), which is the number of pages that can be printed in a minute. When you’re comparing page per minute ratings, be sure you look at the numbers for printing graphics instead of at text.
• Cost per page: If you’re frequently printing maps, it makes good economic sense to use a printer with a reasonable cost-per-page rating (the estimated cost to print a single page, considering paper and ink). Cost per-page rates vary considerably between printers and are usually mentioned in magazine and online reviews.