Comment by hotpotamus

Yep, inkjets need to periodically "clean" the heads by squirting something through them, and they happen to be filled with ink, so that's what they use. I successfully got one working once with vodka when its self cleaning routine couldn't do the job and rubbing alcohol wasn't close to hand.

This is why I use and recommend a black and white laser printers - total cost of ownership is easiest and cheapest in my experience. I suppose they're more expensive than an ink jet to start off with, but it's not that big a difference and a decade of near trouble free printing is worth something for sure.

I don't see the need for color printing documents, but if so there's office stores. For photo prints I'd be looking at places with high end inkjets most likely these days, but there are other color processes that should still work well - I did RA-4 chemical photo printing way back when and it was excellent at the time and should hold up well, but I don't know that anyone bothers with that today.