What is a Printer? 

A printer is a device that takes text and graphics from a computer and transfers the information to paper (usually 8.5″ x 11″ paper). Printers vary in size, speed, complexity and cost. Typically, more expensive printers are used for more frequent printing or high-resolution colour printing.

Printers for personal computers can be divided into impact type and non-impact type. Early impact printers worked like automatic typewriters, making an ink impression on the paper for each letter the key was printed on. Dot matrix printers, which are impact printers that print line by line on paper, have been a popular low-cost option.

The best-known non-impact printers are inkjet printers and laser printers. Inkjet printers eject ink from an ink cartridge very close to the paper, whereas laser printers use a laser beam that bounces off a mirror to draw ink (called toner) onto selected areas of the paper as it rolls across a drum. pull. .

Different Types of Printers

There are many printer manufacturers today including Canon, Epson, Hewlett-Packard, Xerox and Lexmark. There are also several types of printers to choose from, which we will cover below.

• The inkjet printer reproduces digital images by jetting ink onto paper. This is the most common type of personal printer. 

• The laser printer is used to create high-quality prints by passing a laser beam at high speed through a negatively charged imaging drum.

Colour laser printers are more common in professional environments. 

• The 3D printer is a relatively new printing technology. 3D printing creates physical objects from digital files. I work by adding layers of material until the print job is complete and the object is complete. 

• The thermal printer creates an image on the paper by passing the thermochromic-coated paper through an electrically heated print head and creating an image in the area where the heating coating turns black.

• A sublimation printer is a form of thermal printing technology that uses heat to transfer dyes onto a material. The MFP is a multifunction device that combines printing with other technologies such as copiers, scanners and/or fax machines. 

• The LED printer is similar to a laser printer, but instead of a laser, an LED matrix is ​​used in the print head. 

• The Photo Printer is similar to an inkjet printer, but is specifically designed for high-quality photo printing that requires large amounts of ink and specialty media to prevent ink smudging.