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An inkjet printer uses liquid ink stored in a cartridge to print images. If it is a black and white printer—also often called a mono printer—it will only have a black cartridge. 

However, most ink or inkjet printers are color printers. Color inkjet printers contain black, cyan, magenta, and yellow ink cartridges. The printer will create an image on each page by injecting droplets of ink through nozzles to make tiny dots on the paper.  

These dots are so small and spaced so closely together that the pictures or text look like a solid image. By combining these colored dots, they can be used to make every color within the color spectrum. 

A laser printer uses a very different process than an inkjet printer.  

First, the image is created on a drum. This drum is then given a charge which applies around 600 volts to the drum with a static field and allows light enough objects to be attracted to the drum. Imagine it as similar to how hair floats towards a plastic comb after the comb has been rubbed dry on a sweater. 

Next, a laser writes the image onto the drum. A roller covered in powdered ink then applies the toner to the drum’s surface. A static charge makes the toner stick to where the image should be on the drum. The toner is then transferred onto a piece of paper.  

In the last step, the paper is fed through hot rollers, also called a fuser. The fuser acts like an iron to melt the toner onto the page and permanently set the image onto the paper. That’s why copies are warm to the touch when they come out of the printer.