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Discover the best large format printers available, from desktop options to roll-fed commercial printers BYHX board
The quick list ↩ 1. Best overall: Canon PRO-300 2. Best value: Epson SC-P900 3. Heavy-duty: Canon Pro-1000 4. Best budget: Epson HD XP-15000 5: Economical: Epson ET-8550 6. High volume: Epson SC-P20000 7. 24-inch: Canon PRO-2100 8. Plotter: HP DesignJet Studio How to choose How we test FAQs
The best large format printers allow us to take advantage of the resolution of today's best professional digital cameras to print images up to billboard size, something that was once only possible for professionals who were able to spend eye-watering amounts on a large-format camera.
The size of large format printers can vary from desktop 13-inch printers (A3+ in Europe) to 17-inch roll printers and larger for increased flexibility in size and potentially a greater volume of prints. We've reviewed a wide range of options to pick out the best large format printer for different needs and budgets, evaluating print quality and costs, speed and volume.
If you're not looking to print at such large sizes, you might want to see our guides to the best compact printers and the best all-in-one printers.
We find that this desktop A3+ printer provides excellent output quality with superb accuracy for color prints and fabulous definition for black & white, without any unwanted color casts.
This has a relatively compact footprint for a printer that can handle up to A2 (17 inches) prints, and it's well priced too. We found it produced deep, contrasty blacks and rich tones.
We found that this 12-ink pro option produces outstanding color and mono quality on matte and fine art media, while a chroma optimizer helps minimise bronzing on glossy photo paper.
With only six inks, this entry-level 13-inch printer doesn't reproduce colors with quite such accuracy, but it offers reliable A3 printing at a very attractive price, making it ideal for beginners.
This A3+ printer is a great option for long-term savings. Instead of cartridges, it has ink tanks that you refill from bottles, potentially reducing running costs considerably.
This wide format printer is designed for mini labs and photo studios that need something that can provide both scale and volume. It prints up to 64 inches in width and up to 209 sq ft per hour for photos.
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The Canon PRO-300 is the successor to the highly-regarded PRO-10. Like its predecessor, its distinguishing feature is that it uses ten pigment inks rather than dye-based ink. One of the cartridges is a ‘Chroma Optimizer’, which provides a smooth finish on glossy paper. The other nine are Lucia Pro inks, providing the standard six colors for photo printing, plus red and grey inks, and both ‘photo’ black and matte black, for printing on glossy and matte media respectively.
There are individual channels in the print head for both photo and matte black inks, which saves time and ink when swapping between media types. In our testing, we were impressed with the excellent output quality, finding superb accuracy in color prints and fabulous definition for black & white photo prints, without any unwanted color casts.
Read our full Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-300 review for more details
Can’t decide whether you need a sheet or roll printer? The Epson SureColor SC-P900 provides a choice of both – although you do have to pay extra to get the roller unit. And Epson’s flexible flagship A2 printer is capable of printing up to 17 inches in width.
This is an update of the older Epson SureColor P800, offering a significant improvement in image quality, with deep contrasty blacks and rich tones thanks to an additional, tenth, ink. We found that the three paper paths, including a front-loading one for fine art paper, made it easy to switch between different formats – and the roll paper option is great to have for panoramic prints.
There’s onboard Wi-Fi for printing from smartphones or cameras directly, and a 4.3-inch touch panel screen for making selections. The 80ml cartridge size is fairly generous. All in all, a relatively compact footprint and accessible price, plus the flexibility this machine provides, make this a great buy.
Read our full Epson SureColor SC-P900 review for more details
A smaller A3+, 13-inch, version of this printer - the Epson SureColor SC-P700 - is also available.
Like Canon’s L-series camera lenses, the PRO-1000 printer has a ‘red line’ on it denoting superior quality aimed at professionals. It packs 12 pigment-based Lucia Pro ink cartridges, compared to the 10 inks for the PRO-300 at the top of our list. We found blacks to be richer and deeper as a result.
the chroma optimizer helps to apply a smooth top coating when printing on glossy photo paper to minimize bronzing and gloss differential. Even so, the printer achieves its highest quality with matte and fine art media, on which color and mono output are truly magnificent. The A2/17x22-inch prints are certainly imposing, and you can create panoramic prints of up to 1.2m in length, although there’s no optional roll-feeder so you have to cut the paper to length manually in advance. The biggest downside, of course, is the price.
Buffer Tank Read our full Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-1000 review