The worst thing about dealing with a typical home printer is the ink. Ink cartridges constantly run out and need to be replaced at a pretty high cost. Some printers require the owner to change a single multi-color ink cartridge when one color runs out even though there may be plenty of ink for each of the other colors. Thermal printers completely eliminate the need for ink cartridges by using a special thermal paper which has ink already inside the thermal paper.
The downside of thermal printers is that they are not really capable of printing in multiple colors. It is pretty much black printing only. Monochrome printing is perfectly fine for most commercial printing purposes that don’t involve artwork. Things like invoices and receipts, for example, are perfectly fine with single color printing although some companies prefer to have a multi-color logo on their invoices.
Another advantage of thermal printers is that they typically use thermal paper rolls. These continuous rolls of paper don’t jam in the printer feed mechanism nearly as often as single sheet paper feeders do. With the continuous thermal paper rolls, the printer usually has a cutting blade that either cuts off the receipt or allows the user to easily tear it off at the desired length after the receipt is printed. This also ensures that the thermal printer uses only as much paper as is required for the materials that is printed rather than using an entire standard sized sheet of paper with only a few lines of printing on it.
In high traffic point of sale (POS) locations, the higher reliability, the lack of need for ink cartridge or printer ribbon replacement, and the lower incidence of paper jamming make thermal printers the right choice for many small and large businesses. Devices like cash registers, credit card machines, and even automated gas pumps use internal thermal printers to print out customer receipts and credit card authorization slips.
In applications where color is required, however, ink printers still rule. Graphic arts, marketing materials, business presentation handouts, and other similar applications still use ink-based color printers to add some character to the printed documents. These applications are generally printed with someone on hand to correct any paper jams, or to replace ink cartridges or printer ribbons as needed, while for many of the thermal printer applications, there is no one present except the machine and the customer who isn’t about to fix any problems the machine may experience.
Part of the reliability of thermal printers comes from their simple design. They use fewer moving parts than most color printers there is less that can go wrong. That’s another plus for busy POS locations where downtime can cut into sales or lower customer satisfaction as they have to wait in line for a working machine when one goes down.
Both types of printers still have valid reasons for their use, but those reasons are almost always specific to the application for which they are intended.