A relatively new and exciting development in the world of printing took place in 1986 as a company called Tektronix produced their first line of solid ink sticks. Since that time Xerox has purchased Tektronix and their concepts and printers using this source of solid ink have become widespread.
Solid ink sticks have definitive advantages in situations of high quality, high speed, continuous printing such as office printing centers or college libraries. The ink, which comes in a solid block to be placed into a slot in the printer, is heated and applied to the pages as they are printed. It can take several minutes for the printer to heat up enough to begin printing, but once it is hot a solid ink printer can continue printing all day at a rate faster than any other commercial printer line.
Solid ink printers have environmental benefits as well. The solid, waxy ink is usually made of natural ingredients similar to vegetable oils and are much less harmful to the environment. These printers also do not produce any level of ozone unlike other large printer stations. And because cartridges are not used solid ink sticks create less plastic waste and (provided that the printer is used often enough to keep warm) more ink actually gets on the page, rather than thrown away unused.
As if these advantages were not striking enough, solid ink is capable of yielding brighter colors than many laser or inkjet printers. It is, however, possible to damage ink that has been applied to a page by rubbing or scratching it, and printed pages should not be sent back through a printer again as the first layer of ink will melt once more. Yet even with these few limitations, solid ink printers are an advantageous choice for high demand, high speed, high quality printing environments and an environmentally conscious choice as well.