How to Buy the Correct HP Ink Cartridge for Your Printer

Gather some information about your printer. What type is it? Is it a Deskjet, a Photosmart, an All-in-One printer? You can usually find this information on the front of your printer or when you go into the Printers folder on your computer. For example, you might see the printer named 'HP Photosmart 8100 Series'---this is a Photosmart printer.
Find the number of the printer series. This number should appear right after the printer type---for the 'HP Photosmart 8100 Series' printer, the series number is 8100.
Find the model number. This number should appear on the front of the printer, in the documentation that comes with the printer, or in the printer settings. For our example, the HP Photosmart 8100 Series printer, the model number may be 8150.
Determine what type of ink you want. Some printers can use several types of ink, designed for different uses. Are you printing mostly documents? Are you printing photos? Do you do mostly black-and-white printing? Determine how you're going to use the printer before you look for ink.



Find the right cartridges online. This is recommended even if you're going to buy them from a brick-and-mortar store, because HP has a website where you can find out exactly which cartridges you need before you go.
Select your printer type---for our example, you would select 'Photosmart' under the Home products. If you have a business printer, look for the printer type under Business products. You will be taken to another page where you will enter the rest of the printer info.
Select the printer type in the 'Step 1' drop-down box. Select the printer series in the 'Step 2' drop-down box. Select the printer model in the 'Step 3' drop-down box. Press the 'Shop' button.
You will see a list of compatible cartridges. If you want to buy online, you can purchase them directly from this page.
If you're going to buy in the store or on another site, the information to look for is the two-digit code for the cartridges. This code is printed on the front of the cartridge box. For the 'HP Photosmart 8100 Series' printer in our example, the compatible cartridges are numbers 94, 95, 96, 97 and 99.
There are three basic types of ink: black, tri-color and photo. If you print mostly black-and-white documents or greyscale images, choose a black cartridge to avoid wasting color ink when it's not necessary. If you print documents with color, the tri-color cartridge is the best choice, printing clear color in document quality. If you have a photo printer or print mostly photos, the photo cartridges will give you the best result. So for our example 'HP Photosmart 8100 Series' printer, you might select:
---HP 94 Black for black-and-white documents
---HP 95 Tri-Color for color documents
---HP 95/99 Twinpack for printing a mix of color documents and photos
---HP 99 for photo printing
The cartridge boxes are also color-coded. Blue boxes are the standard cartridges, now lower-yield (meaning fewer pages printed per cartridge) as well as lower in price. Green boxes are for high-yield cartridges. Red boxes are for specialty ink, such as photo cartridges.