Today small offices have a wide selection of printers to choose from. Color printers may be inkjets, lasers, and models based on other technologies; and monochrome lasers remain an economical choice. Another option is a multifunction printer, sometimes called an "all-in-one," which combines printing, scanning, copying, and faxing functions.

The first part of this guide details how four printers we've recently tested could work well in your small office, with links to the charts in which they are ranked and to our Shop & Compare pricing tool. (Keep in mind that online prices fluctuate constantly.) The second part of the guide offers tips on how to find the best printer for your particular work situation.

The best printers for a small office or home office generate pages quickly and produce crisp output on plain paper as well as on special media. Higher-end models can hold more paper or can print in duplex mode. Multifunction printers perform a wider set of tasks without skimping on efficiency.

The following recently reviewed models are among the best small-business buys we've seen: Canon's Pixma iP4500 and Dell's 1720dn Laser Printer are top-ranked because they're good at pretty much everything as well as being affordable. The HP OfficeJet Pro L7680 is expensive but offers plenty of features and speed in return.

Canon Pixma iP4500

When deciding among printer technologies, it might help to think of your printing decision this way: Do you need to paint a picture or to create the thousand words that describe it?

An inkjet printer excels at painting a picture. Though inkjets have made great strides in speed and text quality in recent years, their forte is graphics quality--especially photo prints. Inkjets can achieve a wider range of colors and produce smoother-looking images than all but the most sophisticated (and astronomically priced) color laser printers. Some can print well even on everyday stock.

Achieving the absolute best quality in an inkjet, however, will cost you. Special papers for brochures, banners, and photos cost anywhere from a dime to a dollar per page (compared to a few cents or less for a piece of plain paper). Ink usage escalates with the complexity of the document, draining pricey cartridges more quickly than you might expect.

A thousand words (or spreadsheet lines) will look better coming from a laser. Lasers set the gold standard for printing precise text--and if that's all you do, a simple monochrome laser could fit the bill nicely. Color lasers (or solid-ink color printers, such as those from Xerox) can handle simple graphics such as pie charts and logos, and they can print decent photos, too.