Applying printing technology to manufacturing of electronics promises significant cost reductions. However, many interesting applications require increased accuracy of graphical printing hardware, excellent electronic functionality of the printed materials, and also introduce complicated ‘ink’-substrate interactions.In this paper we present results of ink jet printing gate metal lines of thin-film transistors (TFTs) on a liquid crystal display's (LCD) active plate. The major components of this study are 1) the formulation of metal precursor inks that have good electrical properties, 2) the printing and layer formation of the materials, and 3) the manufacturing and characterisation of TFT arrays with a printed gate and storage capacitor lines. In addition, we show results on printed spacers for LCDs.We demonstrate printed gate lines (50 μm wide and 250 nm thick) with a resistivity of around 3 μΩ·cm, cured at 350 °C. During layer formation, Rayleigh-type instabilities were prevented and favourable layer thickness profiles have been obtained by tuning the printing frequency, evaporation rate of the solvent, and type of metal colloids. Fabricated TFTs have similar characteristics as those obtained with conventional methods and materials (on-off ratio > 10⁶ and a mobility around 0.5 cm²/Vs).