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In
computing Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and development of both hardware and software. Computing has scientific, ...
, a printer is a peripheral machine which makes a persistent representation of graphics or text, usually on
paper Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distribu ...
. While most output is human-readable, bar code printers are an example of an expanded use for printers. Different types of printers include 3D printers, inkjet printers, laser printers, and thermal printers.


History

The first computer printer designed was a mechanically driven apparatus by Charles Babbage for his
difference engine A difference engine is an automatic mechanical calculator designed to tabulate polynomial functions. It was designed in the 1820s, and was first created by Charles Babbage. The name, the difference engine, is derived from the method of divide ...
in the 19th century; however, his mechanical printer design was not built until 2000. The first patented printing mechanism for applying a marking medium to a recording medium or more particularly an electrostatic inking apparatus and a method for electrostatically depositing ink on controlled areas of a receiving medium, was in 1962 by C. R. Winston, Teletype Corporation, using continuous inkjet printing. The ink was a red stamp-pad ink manufactured by Phillips Process Company of Rochester, NY under the name Clear Print. This patent (US3060429) led to the Teletype Inktronic Printer product delivered to customers in late 1966. The first compact, lightweight digital printer was the EP-101, invented by Japanese company Epson and released in 1968, according to Epson. The first commercial printers generally used mechanisms from electric typewriters and Teletype machines. The demand for higher speed led to the development of new systems specifically for computer use. In the 1980s there were daisy wheel systems similar to typewriters, line printers that produced similar output but at much higher speed, and dot-matrix systems that could mix text and graphics but produced relatively low-quality output. The
plotter A plotter is a machine that produces vector graphics drawings. Plotters draw lines on paper using a pen, or in some applications, use a knife to cut a material like vinyl or leather. In the latter case, they are sometimes known as a cutting ...
was used for those requiring high-quality line art like blueprints. The introduction of the low-cost laser printer in 1984, with the first
HP LaserJet LaserJet as a brand name identifies the line of laser printers marketed by the American computer company Hewlett-Packard (HP). The HP LaserJet was the first popular desktop laser printer. Canon supplies both mechanisms and cartridges for most HP ...
, and the addition of PostScript in next year's
Apple LaserWriter The LaserWriter is a laser printer with built-in PostScript interpreter sold by Apple, Inc. from 1985 to 1988. It was one of the first laser printers available to the mass market. In combination with WYSIWYG publishing software like PageMaker, ...
set off a revolution in printing known as
desktop publishing Desktop publishing (DTP) is the creation of documents using page layout software on a personal ("desktop") computer. It was first used almost exclusively for print publications, but now it also assists in the creation of various forms of online ...
. Laser printers using PostScript mixed text and graphics, like dot-matrix printers, but at quality levels formerly available only from commercial
typesetting Typesetting is the composition of text by means of arranging physical ''type'' (or ''sort'') in mechanical systems or '' glyphs'' in digital systems representing '' characters'' (letters and other symbols).Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random ...
systems. By 1990, most simple printing tasks like fliers and brochures were now created on
personal computer A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or te ...
s and then laser printed; expensive offset printing systems were being dumped as scrap. The HP Deskjet of 1988 offered the same advantages as a laser printer in terms of flexibility, but produced somewhat lower-quality output (depending on the paper) from much less-expensive mechanisms. Inkjet systems rapidly displaced dot-matrix and daisy-wheel printers from the market. By the 2000s, high-quality printers of this sort had fallen under the $100 price point and became commonplace. The rapid improvement of
internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, p ...
email Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" mean ...
through the 1990s and into the 2000s has largely displaced the need for printing as a means of moving documents, and a wide variety of reliable storage systems means that a "physical backup" is of little benefit today. Starting around 2010, 3D printing became an area of intense interest, allowing the creation of physical objects with the same sort of effort as an early laser printer required to produce a brochure. As of the 2020s, 3D printing has become a widespread hobby due to the abundance of cheap 3D printer kits, with the most common process being Fused deposition modeling.


Types

''Personal'' printers are mainly designed to support individual users, and may be connected to only a single computer. These printers are designed for low-volume, short-turnaround
print job In computing, a print job is a file or set of files that has been submitted to be printed with a printer. Jobs are typically identified by a unique number, and are assigned to a particular destination, usually a printer. Jobs can also have optio ...
s, requiring minimal setup time to produce a hard copy of a given document. However, they are generally slow devices ranging from 6 to around 25 pages per minute (ppm), and the cost per page is relatively high. However, this is offset by the on-demand convenience. Some printers can print documents stored on
memory card A memory card is an electronic data storage device used for storing digital information, typically using flash memory. These are commonly used in digital portable electronic devices. They allow adding memory to such devices using a card in a so ...
s or from digital cameras and scanners. ''Networked'' or ''shared'' printers are "designed for high-volume, high-speed printing". They are usually shared by many users on a
network Network, networking and networked may refer to: Science and technology * Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects * Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks Mathematic ...
and can print at speeds of 45 to around 100 ppm. The
Xerox 9700 The Xerox 9700 was a high-end laser printer manufactured by Xerox Corporation beginning in 1977. Based on the Xerox 9200 copier, the 9700 printed at 300 dots-per-inch on cut-sheet paper at up to two pages per second (pps), one- or two-sided, that ...
could achieve 120 ppm. A ''
virtual printer In computing a virtual printer is a simulated device whose user interface and API resemble that of a printer driver, but which is not connected with a physical computer printer. When a document is "printed" by a virtual printer, instead of phys ...
'' is a piece of computer software whose user interface and API resembles that of a printer driver, but which is not connected with a physical computer printer. A virtual printer can be used to create a file which is an image of the data which would be printed, for archival purposes or as input to another program, for example to create a PDF or to transmit to another system or user. A '' barcode printer'' is a computer peripheral for printing barcode labels or tags that can be attached to, or printed directly on, physical objects. Barcode printers are commonly used to label cartons before shipment, or to label retail items with UPCs or EANs. A '' 3D printer'' is a device for making a three-dimensional object from a 3D model or other electronic data source through additive processes in which successive layers of material (including plastics, metals, food, cement, wood, and other materials) are laid down under computer control. It is called a printer by analogy with an inkjet printer which produces a two-dimensional document by a similar process of depositing a layer of ink on paper.


ID Card printers

A card printer is an electronic
desktop printer In computing, a printer is a peripheral machine which makes a persistent representation of graphics or text, usually on paper. While most output is human-readable, bar code printers are an example of an expanded use for printers. Diff ...
with single card feeders which print and personalize
plastic cards A debit card, also known as a check card or bank card is a payment card that can be used in place of cash to make purchases. The term ''plastic card'' includes the above and as an identity document. These are similar to a credit card, but unl ...
. In this respect they differ from, for example, label printers which have a continuous supply feed. Card dimensions are usually 85.60 × 53.98 mm, standardized under ISO/IEC 7810 as ID-1. This format is also used in EC-cards, telephone cards,
credit card A credit card is a payment card issued to users (cardholders) to enable the cardholder to pay a merchant for goods and services based on the cardholder's accrued debt (i.e., promise to the card issuer to pay them for the amounts plus the ...
s,
driver's license A driver's license is a legal authorization, or the official document confirming such an authorization, for a specific individual to operate one or more types of motorized vehicles—such as motorcycles, cars, trucks, or buses—on a publi ...
s and health insurance cards. This is commonly known as the bank card format. Card printers are controlled by corresponding printer drivers or by means of a specific programming language. Generally card printers are designed with laminating, striping, and punching functions, and use desktop or web-based software. The hardware features of a card printer differentiate a card printer from the more traditional printers, as ID cards are usually made of PVC plastic and require laminating and punching. Different card printers can accept different card thickness and dimensions. The principle is the same for practically all card printers: the plastic card is passed through a thermal print head at the same time as a color ribbon. The color from the ribbon is transferred onto the card through the heat given out from the print head. The standard performance for card printing is 300 dpi (300 dots per inch, equivalent to 11.8 dots per mm). There are different printing processes, which vary in their detail: ; Thermal transfer: Mainly used to personalize pre-printed plastic cards in monochrome. The color is "transferred" from the (monochrome) color ribbon onto the card. ;
Dye sublimation Dye-Sublimation Printing (or dye-sub printing) is a digital computer printing technique that uses heat to transfer dye onto materials such as plastic, card, paper, or fabric. The sublimation name was first applied because the dye was considere ...
: This process uses four panels of color according to the
CMYK The CMYK color model (also known as process color, or four color) is a subtractive color model, based on the CMY color model, used in color printing, and is also used to describe the printing process itself. The abbreviation ''CMYK'' refers ...
color ribbon. The card to be printed passes under the print head several times each time with the corresponding ribbon panel. Each color in turn is diffused (sublimated) directly onto the card. Thus it is possible to produce a high depth of color (up to 16 million shades) on the card. Afterwards a transparent overlay (O) also known as a topcoat (T) is placed over the card to protect it from mechanical wear and tear and to render the printed image UV resistant. ; Reverse image technology: The standard for high-security card applications that use contact and contactless smart chip cards. The technology prints images onto the underside of a special film that fuses to the surface of a card through heat and pressure. Since this process transfers dyes and resins directly onto a smooth, flexible film, the print-head never comes in contact with the card surface itself. As such, card surface interruptions such as smart chips, ridges caused by internal RFID antennae and debris do not affect print quality. Even printing over the edge is possible. ; Thermal rewrite print process: In contrast to the majority of other card printers, in the thermal rewrite process the card is not personalized through the use of a color ribbon, but by activating a thermal sensitive foil within the card itself. These cards can be repeatedly personalized, erased and rewritten. The most frequent use of these are in chip-based student identity cards, whose validity changes every semester. * Common printing problems: Many printing problems are caused by physical defects in the card material itself, such as deformation or warping of the card that is fed into the machine in the first place. Printing irregularities can also result from chip or antenna embedding that alters the thickness of the plastic and interferes with the printer's effectiveness. Other issues are often caused by operator errors, such as users attempting to feed non-compatible cards into the card printer, while other printing defects may result from environmental abnormalities such as dirt or contaminants on the card or in the printer. Reverse transfer printers are less vulnerable to common printing problems than direct-to-card printers, since with these printers the card does not come into direct contact with the printhead. * Variations in card printers: ** Broadly speaking there are three main types of card printers, differing mainly by the method used to print onto the card. They are: *** Near to Edge. This term designates the cheapest type of printing by card printers. These printers print up to 5 mm from the edge of the card stock. *** Direct to Card, also known as "Edge to Edge Printing". The print-head comes in direct contact with the card. This printing type is the most popular nowadays, mostly due to cost factor. The majority of identification card printers today are of this type. *** Reverse Transfer, also known as "High Definition Printing" or "Over the Edge Printing". The print-head prints to a transfer film backwards (hence the reverse) and then the printed film is rolled onto the card with intense heat (hence the transfer). The term "over the edge" is due to the fact that when the printer prints onto the film it has a "bleed", and when rolled onto the card the bleed extends to completely over the edge of the card, leaving no border. ** Different ID Card Printers use different encoding techniques to facilitate disparate business environments and to support security initiatives. Known encoding techniques are: *** Contact Smart Card – The Contact Smart Cards use RFID technology and require direct contact to a conductive plate to register admission or transfer of information. The transmission of commands, data, and card status held between the two physical contact points. *** Contactless Smart Card – Contactless Smart Cards exhibit integrated circuit that can store and process data while communicating with the terminal via Radio Frequency. Unlike Contact Smart Card, contact less cards feature intelligent re-writable
microchip An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip") of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Large numbers of tiny ...
that can be transcribed through radio waves. *** HiD Proximity – HID's proximity technology allows fast, accurate reading while offering card or key tag read ranges from 4” to 24” inches (10 cm to 60.96 cm), dependent on the type of proximity reader being used. Since these cards and key tags do not require physical contact with the reader, they are virtually maintenance and wear-free. *** ISO Magnetic Stripe - A magnetic stripe card is a type of card capable of storing data by modifying the
magnetism Magnetism is the class of physical attributes that are mediated by a magnetic field, which refers to the capacity to induce attractive and repulsive phenomena in other entities. Electric currents and the magnetic moments of elementary particles ...
of tiny iron-based magnetic particles on a band of magnetic material on the card. The magnetic stripe, sometimes called swipe card or magstripe, is read by physical contact and swiping past a magnetic reading head.


Software

There are basically two categories of card printer software: desktop-based, and web-based (online). The biggest difference between the two is whether or not a customer has a printer on their network that is capable of printing identification cards. If a business already owns an ID card printer, then a desktop-based badge maker is probably suitable for their needs. Typically, large organizations who have high employee turnover will have their own printer. A desktop-based badge maker is also required if a company needs their IDs make instantly. An example of this is the private construction site that has restricted access. However, if a company does not already have a local (or network) printer that has the features they need, then the web-based option is a perhaps a more affordable solution. The web-based solution is good for small businesses that don't anticipate a lot of rapid growth, or organizations who either can't afford a card printer, or don't have the resources to learn how to set up and use one. Generally speaking, desktop-based solutions involve software, a database (or spreadsheet) and can be installed on a single computer or network.


=Other options

= Alongside the basic function of printing cards, card printers can also read and encode magnetic stripes as well as contact and contact free RFID chip cards (
smart card A smart card, chip card, or integrated circuit card (ICC or IC card) is a physical electronic authentication device, used to control access to a resource. It is typically a plastic credit card-sized card with an embedded integrated circuit (IC) c ...
s). Thus card printers enable the encoding of plastic cards both visually and logically. Plastic cards can also be laminated after printing. Plastic cards are laminated after printing to achieve a considerable increase in durability and a greater degree of counterfeit prevention. Some card printers come with an option to print both sides at the same time, which cuts down the time taken to print and less margin of error. In such printers one side of id card is printed and then the card is flipped in the flip station and other side is printed.


=Applications

= Alongside the traditional uses in time attendance and access control (in particular with photo personalization), countless other applications have been found for plastic cards, e.g. for personalized customer and members’ cards, for sports ticketing and in local public transport systems for the production of season tickets, for the production of school and college identity cards as well as for the production of national ID cards.


Technology

The choice of print technology has a great effect on the cost of the printer and cost of operation, speed, quality and permanence of documents, and noise. Some printer technologies do not work with certain types of physical media, such as carbon paper or
transparencies A transparency, also known variously as a viewfoil, foil, or viewgraph, is a thin sheet of transparent flexible material, typically polyester (historically cellulose acetate), onto which figures can be drawn. These are then placed on an overhea ...
. A second aspect of printer technology that is often forgotten is resistance to alteration: liquid ink, such as from an inkjet head or fabric ribbon, becomes absorbed by the paper fibers, so documents printed with liquid ink are more difficult to alter than documents printed with
toner Toner is a powder mixture used in laser printers and photocopiers to form the printed text and images on paper, in general through a toner cartridge. Mostly granulated plastic, early mixtures only added carbon powder and iron oxide, however, ...
or solid inks, which do not penetrate below the paper surface. Cheques can be printed with liquid ink or on special cheque paper with toner anchorage so that alterations may be detected. The machine-readable lower portion of a cheque must be printed using MICR toner or ink. Banks and other clearing houses employ automation equipment that relies on the magnetic flux from these specially printed characters to function properly.


Modern print technology

The following
printing Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The ...
technologies are routinely found in modern printers:


Toner-based printers

A laser printer rapidly produces high quality text and graphics. As with digital
photocopier A photocopier (also called copier or copy machine, and formerly Xerox machine, the generic trademark) is a machine that makes copies of documents and other visual images onto paper or plastic film quickly and cheaply. Most modern photocopier ...
s and multifunction printers (MFPs), laser printers employ a xerographic printing process but differ from analog photocopiers in that the image is produced by the direct scanning of a
laser A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The ...
beam across the printer's photoreceptor. Another toner-based printer is the
LED printer An LED printer is a type of computer printer similar to a laser printer. Such a printer uses a light-emitting diode (LED) array as a light source in the printhead instead of the laser used in laser printers and, more generally, in the xerograp ...
which uses an array of LEDs instead of a
laser A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The ...
to cause toner
adhesion Adhesion is the tendency of dissimilar particles or surfaces to cling to one another ( cohesion refers to the tendency of similar or identical particles/surfaces to cling to one another). The forces that cause adhesion and cohesion can ...
to the print drum.


Liquid inkjet printers

Inkjet printers operate by propelling variably sized droplets of liquid ink onto almost any sized page. They are the most common type of computer printer used by consumers.


Solid ink printers

Solid ink printers, also known as phase-change ink or hot-melt ink printers, are a type of thermal transfer printer, graphics sheet printer or 3D printer . They use solid sticks, crayons, pearls or granular ink materials. Common inks are
CMYK The CMYK color model (also known as process color, or four color) is a subtractive color model, based on the CMY color model, used in color printing, and is also used to describe the printing process itself. The abbreviation ''CMYK'' refers ...
-colored ink, similar in consistency to candle wax, which are melted and fed into a piezo crystal operated print-head. A Thermal transfer printhead jets the liquid ink on a rotating, oil coated drum. The paper then passes over the print drum, at which time the image is immediately transferred, or transfixed, to the page. Solid ink printers are most commonly used as color office printers and are excellent at printing on transparencies and other non-porous media. Solid ink is also called phase-change or hot-melt ink was first used by Data Products and Howtek, Inc., in 1984. Solid ink printers can produce excellent results with text and images. Some solid ink printers have evolved to print 3D models, for example, Visual Impact Corporation of Windham, NH was started by retired Howtek employee, Richard Helinski whose 3D patents US4721635 and then US5136515 was licensed to Sanders Prototype, Inc., later named Solidscape, Inc. Acquisition and operating costs are similar to laser printers. Drawbacks of the technology include high energy consumption and long warm-up times from a cold state. Also, some users complain that the resulting prints are difficult to write on, as the wax tends to repel inks from pens, and are difficult to feed through automatic document feeders, but these traits have been significantly reduced in later models. This type of thermal transfer printer is only available from one manufacturer,
Xerox Xerox Holdings Corporation (; also known simply as Xerox) is an American corporation that sells print and digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut (having moved from St ...
, manufactured as part of their Xerox Phaser office printer line. Previously, solid ink printers were manufactured by Tektronix, but Tektronix sold the printing business to Xerox in 2001.


Dye-sublimation printers

A dye-sublimation printer (or dye-sub printer) is a printer that employs a printing process that uses heat to transfer dye to a medium such as a plastic card, paper, or
canvas Canvas is an extremely durable plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, shelters, as a support for oil painting and for other items for which sturdiness is required, as well as in such fashion objects as handbag ...
. The process is usually to lay one color at a time using a ribbon that has color panels. Dye-sub printers are intended primarily for high-quality color applications, including color photography; and are less well-suited for text. While once the province of high-end print shops, dye-sublimation printers are now increasingly used as dedicated consumer photo printers.


Thermal printers

Thermal printers work by selectively heating regions of special heat-sensitive paper. Monochrome thermal printers are used in cash registers, ATMs, gasoline dispensers and some older inexpensive fax machines. Colors can be achieved with special papers and different temperatures and heating rates for different colors; these colored sheets are not required in black-and-white output. One example is Zink (a portmanteau of "zero ink").


Obsolete and special-purpose printing technologies

The following technologies are either obsolete, or limited to special applications though most were, at one time, in widespread use.


Impact printers

Impact printers rely on a forcible impact to transfer ink to the media. The impact printer uses a print head that either hits the surface of the ink ribbon, pressing the ink ribbon against the paper (similar to the action of a typewriter), or, less commonly, hits the back of the paper, pressing the paper against the ink ribbon (the IBM 1403 for example). All but the dot matrix printer rely on the use of ''fully formed characters'',
letterform A letterform, letter-form or letter form, is a term used especially in typography, palaeography, calligraphy and epigraphy to mean a letter's shape. A letterform is a type of glyph, which is a specific, concrete way of writing an abstract c ...
s that represent each of the characters that the printer was capable of printing. In addition, most of these printers were limited to monochrome, or sometimes two-color, printing in a single typeface at one time, although bolding and
underlining An underscore, ; also called an underline, low line, or low dash; is a line drawn under a segment of text. In proofreading, underscoring is a convention that says "set this text in italic type", traditionally used on manuscript or typescript as ...
of text could be done by "overstriking", that is, printing two or more impressions either in the same character position or slightly offset. Impact printers varieties include typewriter-derived printers, teletypewriter-derived printers, daisywheel printers, dot matrix printers, and line printers. Dot-matrix printers remain in common use in businesses where multi-part forms are printed. ''An overview of impact printing'' contains a detailed description of many of the technologies used.


=Typewriter-derived printers

= Several different computer printers were simply computer-controllable versions of existing electric typewriters. The Friden Flexowriter and IBM Selectric-based printers were the most-common examples. The Flexowriter printed with a conventional typebar mechanism while the Selectric used IBM's well-known "golf ball" printing mechanism. In either case, the letter form then struck a ribbon which was pressed against the paper, printing one character at a time. The maximum speed of the Selectric printer (the faster of the two) was 15.5 characters per second.


=Teletypewriter-derived printers

= The common
teleprinter A teleprinter (teletypewriter, teletype or TTY) is an electromechanical device that can be used to send and receive typed messages through various communications channels, in both point-to-point and point-to-multipoint configurations. Init ...
could easily be interfaced with the computer and became very popular except for those computers manufactured by IBM. Some models used a "typebox" that was positioned, in the X- and Y-axes, by a mechanism, and the selected letter form was struck by a hammer. Others used a type cylinder in a similar way as the Selectric typewriters used their type ball. In either case, the letter form then struck a ribbon to print the letterform. Most teleprinters operated at ten characters per second although a few achieved 15 CPS.


=Daisy wheel printers

= Daisy wheel printers operate in much the same fashion as a typewriter. A hammer strikes a wheel with petals, the "daisy wheel", each petal containing a letter form at its tip. The letter form strikes a ribbon of ink, depositing the ink on the page and thus printing a character. By rotating the daisy wheel, different characters are selected for printing. These printers were also referred to as ''letter-quality printers'' because they could produce text which was as clear and crisp as a typewriter. The fastest letter-quality printers printed at 30 characters per second.


=Dot-matrix printers

= The term dot matrix printer is used for impact printers that use a matrix of small pins to transfer ink to the page. The advantage of dot matrix over other impact printers is that they can produce graphical images in addition to text; however the text is generally of poorer quality than impact printers that use letterforms (''type''). Dot-matrix printers can be broadly divided into two major classes: * Ballistic wire printers * Stored energy printers Dot matrix printers can either be
character Character or Characters may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk * ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...
-based or line-based (that is, a single horizontal series of pixels across the page), referring to the configuration of the print head. In the 1970s and '80s, dot matrix printers were one of the more common types of printers used for general use, such as for home and small office use. Such printers normally had either 9 or 24 pins on the print head (early 7 pin printers also existed, which did not print
descender In typography and handwriting, a descender is the portion of a letter that extends below the baseline of a font. For example, in the letter ''y'', the descender is the "tail", or that portion of the diagonal line which lies below the ''v' ...
s). There was a period during the early home computer era when a range of printers were manufactured under many brands such as the Commodore VIC-1525 using the Seikosha Uni-Hammer system. This used a single solenoid with an oblique striker that would be actuated 7 times for each column of 7 vertical pixels while the head was moving at a constant speed. The angle of the striker would align the dots vertically even though the head had moved one dot spacing in the time. The vertical dot position was controlled by a synchronized longitudinally ribbed platen behind the paper that rotated rapidly with a rib moving vertically seven dot spacings in the time it took to print one pixel column. 24-pin print heads were able to print at a higher quality and started to offer additional type styles and were marketed as Near Letter Quality by some vendors. Once the price of inkjet printers dropped to the point where they were competitive with dot matrix printers, dot matrix printers began to fall out of favour for general use. Some dot matrix printers, such as the NEC P6300, can be upgraded to print in color. This is achieved through the use of a four-color ribbon mounted on a mechanism (provided in an upgrade kit that replaces the standard black ribbon mechanism after installation) that raises and lowers the ribbons as needed. Color graphics are generally printed in four passes at standard resolution, thus slowing down printing considerably. As a result, color graphics can take up to four times longer to print than standard monochrome graphics, or up to 8-16 times as long at high resolution mode. Dot matrix printers are still commonly used in low-cost, low-quality applications such as cash registers, or in demanding, very high volume applications like
invoice An invoice, bill or tab is a commercial document issued by a seller to a buyer relating to a sale transaction and indicating the products, quantities, and agreed-upon prices for products or services the seller had provided the buyer. Paym ...
printing. Impact printing, unlike laser printing, allows the pressure of the print head to be applied to a stack of two or more forms to print multi-part documents such as sales invoices and
credit card A credit card is a payment card issued to users (cardholders) to enable the cardholder to pay a merchant for goods and services based on the cardholder's accrued debt (i.e., promise to the card issuer to pay them for the amounts plus the ...
receipts using continuous stationery with
carbonless copy paper Carbonless copy paper (CCP), non-carbon copy paper, or NCR paper (No Carbon Required, taken from the initials of its creator, National Cash Register) is a type of coated paper designed to transfer information written on the front onto sheets benea ...
. It also has security advantages as ink impressed into a paper matrix by force is harder to erase invisibly. Dot-matrix printers were being superseded even as receipt printers after the end of the twentieth century.


=Line printers

= Line printers print an entire line of text at a time. Four principal designs exist. *''Drum printers'', where a horizontally mounted rotating drum carries the entire character set of the printer repeated in each printable character position. The IBM 1132 printer is an example of a drum printer. Drum printers are also found in adding machines and other numeric printers (POS), the dimensions are compact as only a dozen characters need to be supported. *''Chain or train printers'', where the character set is arranged multiple times around a linked chain or a set of character slugs in a track traveling horizontally past the print line. The IBM 1403 is perhaps the most popular and comes in both chain and train varieties. The ''band printer'' is a later variant where the characters are embossed on a flexible steel band. The LP27 from Digital Equipment Corporation is a band printer. *''Bar printers'', where the character set is attached to a solid bar that moves horizontally along the print line, such as the
IBM 1443 The IBM 1443 Printer (sometimes referred to as the ''1443 Flying Type Bar Printer'') is an obsolete computer line printer used in the punched card era. It was offered in three models: Models 1, 2 and N1; the last two could print up to 240 lines p ...
. *A fourth design, used mainly on very early printers such as the IBM 402, features independent type bars, one for each printable position. Each bar contains the character set to be printed. The bars move vertically to position the character to be printed in front of the print hammer. In each case, to print a line, precisely timed hammers strike against the back of the paper at the exact moment that the correct character to be printed is passing in front of the paper. The paper presses forward against a ribbon which then presses against the character form and the impression of the character form is printed onto the paper. Each system could have slight timing issues, which could cause minor misalignment of the resulting printed characters. For drum or typebar printers, this appeared as vertical misalignment, with characters being printed slightly above or below the rest of the line. In chain or bar printers, the misalignment was horizontal, with printed characters being crowded closer together or farther apart. This was much less noticeable to human vision than vertical misalignment, where characters seemed to bounce up and down in the line, so they were considered as higher quality print. *''Comb printers'', also called ''
line matrix printer A line matrix printer is a computer printer that is a compromise between a line printer and a dot matrix printer. A line matrix printer prints page-wide lines of dots, building up a line of text by printing lines of dots. Applications Line matrix ...
s'', represent the fifth major design. These printers are a hybrid of
dot matrix printing Dot matrix printing, sometimes called impact matrix printing, is a computer printing process in which ink is applied to a surface using a relatively low-resolution dot matrix for layout. Dot matrix printers typically use a print head that moves ...
and line printing. In these printers, a comb of hammers prints a portion of a row of pixels at one time, such as every eighth pixel. By shifting the comb back and forth slightly, the entire pixel row can be printed, continuing the example, in just eight cycles. The paper then advances, and the next pixel row is printed. Because far less motion is involved than in a conventional dot matrix printer, these printers are very fast compared to dot matrix printers and are competitive in speed with formed-character line printers while also being able to print dot matrix graphics. The
Printronix Printronix is an American supplier of line matrix printers. Printronix is based in Irvine, California, and operates across 14 offices worldwide. Products Printronix's printers are primarily used in industrial environments for printing high-volum ...
P7000 series of line matrix printers are still manufactured as of 2013. Line printers are the fastest of all impact printers and are used for bulk printing in large computer centres. A line printer can print at 1100 lines per minute or faster, frequently printing pages more rapidly than many current laser printers. On the other hand, the mechanical components of line printers operate with tight tolerances and require regular preventive maintenance (PM) to produce a top quality print. They are virtually never used with
personal computer A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or te ...
s and have now been replaced by high-speed laser printers. The legacy of line printers lives on in many
operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...
s, which use the abbreviations "lp", "lpr", or "LPT" to refer to printers.


Liquid ink electrostatic printers

Liquid ink electrostatic printers use a chemical coated paper, which is charged by the print head according to the image of the document. The paper is passed near a pool of liquid ink with the opposite charge. The charged areas of the paper attract the ink and thus form the image. This process was developed from the process of electrostatic copying. Color reproduction is very accurate, and because there is no heating the scale distortion is less than ±0.1%. (All laser printers have an accuracy of ±1%.) Worldwide, most survey offices used this printer before color inkjet plotters become popular. Liquid ink electrostatic printers were mostly available in width and also 6 color printing. These were also used to print large billboards. It was first introduced by Versatec, which was later bought by
Xerox Xerox Holdings Corporation (; also known simply as Xerox) is an American corporation that sells print and digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut (having moved from St ...
. 3M also used to make these printers.


Plotters

Pen-based
plotter A plotter is a machine that produces vector graphics drawings. Plotters draw lines on paper using a pen, or in some applications, use a knife to cut a material like vinyl or leather. In the latter case, they are sometimes known as a cutting ...
s were an alternate printing technology once common in engineering and architectural firms. Pen-based plotters rely on contact with the paper (but not impact, per se) and special purpose pens that are mechanically run over the paper to create text and images. Since the pens output continuous lines, they were able to produce technical drawings of higher resolution than was achievable with dot-matrix technology. Some plotters used roll-fed paper, and therefore had a minimal restriction on the size of the output in one dimension. These plotters were capable of producing quite sizable drawings.


Other printers

A number of other sorts of printers are important for historical reasons, or for special purpose uses. * Digital minilab ( photographic paper) * Electrolytic printers *
Spark printer Spark printing is an obsolete form of computer printing and before that fax and chart recorder printing which uses a special paper coated with a conductive layer over a contrasting backing, originally black carbon over white paper but later alu ...
* Barcode printer multiple technologies, including: thermal printing, inkjet printing, and laser printing barcodes * Billboard / sign paint spray printers * Laser etching (product packaging) industrial printers * Microsphere (special paper)


Attributes


Connectivity

Printers can be connected to computers in many ways: directly by a dedicated data cable such as the USB, through a short-range radio like
Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is limi ...
, a
local area network A local area network (LAN) is a computer network that interconnects computers within a limited area such as a residence, school, laboratory, university campus or office building. By contrast, a wide area network (WAN) not only covers a large ...
using cables (such as the
Ethernet Ethernet () is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 1 ...
) or radio (such as WiFi), or on a standalone basis without a computer, using a
memory card A memory card is an electronic data storage device used for storing digital information, typically using flash memory. These are commonly used in digital portable electronic devices. They allow adding memory to such devices using a card in a so ...
or other portable data storage device. More than half of all printers sold at U.S. retail in 2010 were wireless-capable, but nearly three-quarters of consumers who have access to those printers weren't taking advantage of the increased access to print from multiple devices according to the new Wireless Printing Study.


Printer control languages

Most printers other than line printers accept control characters or unique character sequences to control various printer functions. These may range from shifting from lower to upper case or from black to red ribbon on typewriter printers to switching fonts and changing character sizes and colors on raster printers. Early printer controls were not standardized, with each manufacturer's equipment having its own set. The IBM
Personal Printer Data Stream {{inline, date=December 2018 Personal Printer Data Stream is a general name for a family of page description language used by IBM printers, which includes all Proprinter, Quietwriter, Quickwriter, LaserPrinter 4019, and LaserPrinter 4029 commands. ...
(PPDS) became a commonly used command set for dot-matrix printers. Today, most printers accept one or more page description languages (PDLs). Laser printers with greater processing power frequently offer support for variants of Hewlett-Packard's Printer Command Language (PCL), PostScript or XML Paper Specification. Most inkjet devices support manufacturer proprietary PDLs such as
ESC/P ESC/P, short for Epson Standard Code for Printers and sometimes styled Escape/P, is a printer control language developed by Epson to control computer printers. It was mainly used in dot matrix printers and some inkjet printers, and is still wide ...
. The diversity in mobile platforms have led to various standardization efforts around device PDLs such as the Printer Working Group (PWG's) PWG Raster.


Printing speed

The speed of early printers was measured in units of ''characters per minute'' (cpm) for character printers, or ''lines per minute'' (lpm) for line printers. Modern printers are measured in ''pages per minute'' (ppm). These measures are used primarily as a marketing tool, and are not as well standardised as toner yields. Usually pages per minute refers to sparse monochrome office documents, rather than dense pictures which usually print much more slowly, especially color images. Speeds in ppm usually apply to A4 paper in most countries in the world, and letter paper size, about 6% shorter, in North America.


Printing mode

The data received by a printer may be: * A string of characters * A bitmapped image * A vector image * A
computer program A computer program is a sequence or set of instructions in a programming language for a computer to Execution (computing), execute. Computer programs are one component of software, which also includes software documentation, documentation and oth ...
written in a page description language, such as PCL or PostScript Some printers can process all four types of data, others not. * Character printers, such as daisy wheel printers, can handle only plain text data or rather simple point plots. * Pen
plotter A plotter is a machine that produces vector graphics drawings. Plotters draw lines on paper using a pen, or in some applications, use a knife to cut a material like vinyl or leather. In the latter case, they are sometimes known as a cutting ...
s typically process vector images. Inkjet based plotters can adequately reproduce all four. * Modern printing technology, such as laser printers and inkjet printers, can adequately reproduce all four. This is especially true of printers equipped with support for PCL or PostScript, which includes the vast majority of printers produced today. Today it is possible to print everything (even plain text) by sending ready bitmapped images to the printer. This allows better control over formatting, especially among machines from different vendors. Many
printer driver In computers, a printer driver or a print processor is a piece of software on a computer that converts the data to be printed to a format that a printer can understand. The purpose of printer drivers is to allow applications to do printing without ...
s do not use the text mode at all, even if the printer is capable of it.


Monochrome, color and photo printers

A monochrome printer can only produce monochrome images, with only shades of a single
color Color (American English) or colour (British English) is the visual perceptual property deriving from the spectrum of light interacting with the photoreceptor cells of the eyes. Color categories and physical specifications of color are associ ...
. Most printers can produce only two colors, black (ink) and white (no ink). With half-tonning techniques, however, such a printer can produce acceptable grey-scale images too A color printer can produce images of multiple colors. A photo printer is a color printer that can produce images that mimic the color range (gamut) and resolution of prints made from photographic film.


Page yield

The page yield is number of pages that can be printed from a toner cartridge or ink cartridge—before the cartridge needs to be refilled or replaced. The actual number of pages yielded by a specific cartridge depends on a number of factors. For a fair comparison, many laser printer manufacturers use the
ISO/IEC 19752 ISO/IEC 19752 ''Information technology — Method for the determination of toner cartridge yield for monochromatic electrophotographic printers and multi-function devices that contain printer components'' is an ISO/IEC standard method for the ...
process to measure the toner cartridge yield. "Printer & Page Yield Overview" Hewlett-Packard.


Economics

In order to fairly compare operating expenses of printers with a relatively small ink cartridge to printers with a larger, more expensive toner cartridge that typically holds more toner and so prints more pages before the cartridge needs to be replaced, many people prefer to estimate operating expenses in terms of cost per page (CPP). Retailers often apply the "razor and blades" model: a company may sell a printer at cost and make profits on the ink cartridge, paper, or some other replacement part. This has caused legal disputes regarding the right of companies other than the printer manufacturer to sell compatible ink cartridges. To protect their business model, several manufacturers invest heavily in developing new cartridge technology and patenting it. Other manufacturers, in reaction to the challenges from using this business model, choose to make more money on printers and less on ink, promoting the latter through their advertising campaigns. Finally, this generates two clearly different proposals: "cheap printer – expensive ink" or "expensive printer – cheap ink". Ultimately, the consumer decision depends on their reference
interest rate An interest rate is the amount of interest due per period, as a proportion of the amount lent, deposited, or borrowed (called the principal sum). The total interest on an amount lent or borrowed depends on the principal sum, the interest rate, t ...
or their time preference. From an
economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics anal ...
viewpoint, there is a clear trade-off between cost per copy and cost of the printer.


Printer steganography

Printer steganography is a type of steganography – "hiding data within data" – produced by color printers, including
Brother A brother is a man or boy who shares one or more parents with another; a male sibling. The female counterpart is a sister. Although the term typically refers to a familial relationship, it is sometimes used endearingly to refer to non-famili ...
, Canon, Dell, Epson, HP, IBM, Konica Minolta, Kyocera, Lanier, Lexmark, Ricoh,
Toshiba , commonly known as Toshiba and stylized as TOSHIBA, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure systems, ...
and
Xerox Xerox Holdings Corporation (; also known simply as Xerox) is an American corporation that sells print and digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut (having moved from St ...
Retrieved 11 March 2011. brand color laser printers, where tiny yellow dots are added to each page. The dots are barely visible and contain encoded printer serial numbers, as well as date and time stamps.


See also

* Campus card * Cardboard modeling * Dye-sublimation printer * History of printing * Label printer * List of printer companies * Print (command) *
Printer driver In computers, a printer driver or a print processor is a piece of software on a computer that converts the data to be printed to a format that a printer can understand. The purpose of printer drivers is to allow applications to do printing without ...
* Print screen * Print server *
Printer friendly Printer-friendly is a term used on the Internet to describe a version of a web page formatted for printing. Normally, web pages include information and navigation content that is only useful while browsing the website. Printer-friendly pages are ...
(also known as a printable version) *
Printer point In photography, a printer point is a unit of relative exposure, in printing a negative, equal to a 1/12 of a stop or 0.025 Log(base 10) unit (one-fortieth of a decade) of exposure ratio. This numbering scheme is used in photographic printing and p ...
* Printer (publishing) * Printmaking *
Smart card A smart card, chip card, or integrated circuit card (ICC or IC card) is a physical electronic authentication device, used to control access to a resource. It is typically a plastic credit card-sized card with an embedded integrated circuit (IC) c ...
* Typewriter ribbon * 3D printing


References


External links

* {{Authority control Computer printers Office equipment Typography Articles containing video clips Network appliances