Many of us use a surge protector, UPS, or power strip for out computers. They are not only smart for maintaining a quality electrical flow to the system, but they are handy for turning everything on and off with one switch. But, leave your printer off of the strip. If your printer has a power switch, use it to turn it on and off rather than using a power strip. The main reason for this is that it helps preserve the ink. Most ink jet printers go through their own shutdown procedure when you turn them off, and this includes parking the ink cartridges so that they do not dry out. If you use a power strip, then power is just suddenly cut to the printer and it has no chance to perform its shutdown.

Many ink jets today have a sleep mode, so they hog very little power and might not be an issue. In regards to UPSes, though, it is usually best not to plug your ink jet into a UPS. If your power does go out, the printer can be an unnecessary drain on the battery. And definitely do not plug laser printers into a UPS. The lamps in those printers can easily cause overload of the UPS.