When you are working as a printer technician, there are a lot of skills which you will need to utilise, as there is more to being a printer technician than just making sure the paper goes in and out successfully!

Of course, the bread and butter of your work as a printer technician will be dealing with the insides of the printer, so it is important to have a detailed knowledge of how these machines work, and how the different mechanics created by the manufacturers all apply differently to achieve the same end – the printed page.  

This knowledge will usually come through one of two routes, either through an educational course teaching you about being a printer technician, or through a job or apprenticeship where a professional will teach you about printers and the work.

If you are planning to set up as an independent technician and work for yourself, you will also need to have a working knowledge of business, and where you should be setting your prices in order to be competitive, but not so low that you cannot pay your own bills.  If you are going to be looking to work in this way, you will need to accept that much of the additional work of running a business can take almost as much time as genuinely being a printer technician.

With many more of the modern printers not being attached to the computer via cables, you will also need to have a better working knowledge of networks and connecting a wireless printer to these networks.  In many ways, the modern printer technician looks at much more than just the mechanics of the printer.

Many of today’s printers will also have a number of other features built in to the machine, so if you are going to be dealing with this type of machine, you can also be asked to deal with the scanner, photocopier or even the memory card reader features which are included in these multi-function machines.

So as you can see from the skills discussed in this article, being an expert in how the printer actually works is not the only thing that you will need to know if you are starting your career as a printer technician