Inkjet printers are ideal for homes that will be printing a combination of photos, graphics and text – a mix of greeting cards, brochures, scrapbook pages and school projects. They are great for image-heavy documents. If you want to print high-resolution colour images, choose an inkjet device. Inkjets can also accommodate a wider variety of paper sizes and stocks. If device size is a consideration, inkjets generally take up less space than bulkier laser printers do. Laser printers are great for homes or home offices that print high volumes of text-heavy documents. They produce sharp text at h

At a minimum, an all-in-one printer will print, copy and scan. A device that performs just these three functions is a 3-in-1; a 4-in-1 includes a fax function. Even if a fax machine is not built into the hardware, you can still fax from an all-in-one printer. You can send and receive faxes over the Internet; look for the I-Fax function on select Canon imageCLASS devices. You can also scan the document on your device, then use an online fax service to transmit it.

The best office all-in-ones have a fast printing speed, a low cost-per-page, automatic double-sided printing, single-pass duplex scanning and built-in fax. An office all-in-one will likely have to handle a heavy workload of text-driven documents, jobs best suited for laser printers. Start your search: The imageCLASS MF455dw produces high-speed, high-quality black-and-white prints with a user-friendly interface and Wi-Fi printing capabilities. The colour imageCLASS MF644Cdw features a large-panel display with intuitive touch-and-swipe technology. A high-capacity, all-in-one cartridge helps red