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Lecture 11-12

Computer Applications to Business

Printing

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Commonly Used Printers

• Printer can be categorize into two categories:

1) Impact printers

2) Non-impact printers

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1) Impact printers

– Creates an image by using pins or hammers to press an inked ribbon against the paper.

– Generate output by striking the paper– Uses an inked ribbon – For example ; type writer– The most common type of impact printer is the dot matrix

printer– Other types of impact printers are line printers and band

printers.

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2) Non-impact printers

– Other means to create an image.

– Ink jet printers, for example, use tiny nozzles to spray droplets of ink onto the page.

– Laser printers work like photocopiers, using heat to bond microscopic particles of dry toner to specific parts of the page.

– Use methods other than force

– Tend to be quiet and fast

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Commonly Used Printers

• Dot matrix printers– Impact printer– Commonly used in workplaces where physical impact with

the paper is important. – When the user is printing to carbon copy or pressure

sensitive forms.– Used to print to multi-sheet pages

– Print head (contains a cluster or matrix of short pins arranged in one or more columns) strikes inked ribbon.

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Dot matrix printers

– The more pins that a print head contains, the higher the printer’s resolution.

– The lowest-resolution dot matrix printers have only nine pins;

– The highest-resolution printers have 24 pins.– The slowest dot matrix printers create 50 to 70 characters

per second; – the fastest print more than 500 cps.– Not commonly used in homes, – Still widely used in business.

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Dot Matrix Print Head

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Dot matrix printers

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Commonly Used Printers

• Other types of impact printers:

• Line printers– Uses a special wide print head that can print an entire line

of text at one time.– Line printers do not offer high resolution but are incredibly

fast.– The fastest can print 3,000 lines of text per minute.

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Commonly Used Printers

• Other types of impact printers:

• Band printers– Features a rotating band embossed with alphanumeric

characters.– To print a character, the machine rotates the band to the

desired character then a small hammer taps the band, pressing the character against a ribbon.

– Can generate 2,000 lines of text per minute

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Commonly Used Printers• Ink-jet printers– Non-impact printer– Inexpensive home printer– create an image directly on the paper by spraying ink

through tiny nozzles.– attain print resolutions of at least 300 dots per inch.– When used with special printing paper, many ink jet

printers can produce photo-quality images.– Color output common using CMYK• Cyan, magenta, yellow, black

– Sprays ink onto paper

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Commonly Used Printers--Ink-jet printers

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Dots Per Inch

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Commonly Used Printers--Non-impact printer

• Laser printer

– Non-impact printer.– Produces high quality documents.– Color or black and white.– A CPU and memory are built into the printer to interpret

the data that it receives from the computer and to control the laser.

– Single-color (black) laser printers typically can produce between 4 and 16 pages of text a minute.

– The most common laser printers have resolutions of 300 or 600 dpi.

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• Laser printer– Print process• Laser draws text on page• Toner sticks to text• Toner melted to page

– Speed measured in pages per minute (PPM)– Quality expressed as dots per inch(DPI)

Commonly Used Printers--Non-impact printer

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Commonly Used PrintersLaser printer: Printing process

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Commonly Used PrintersLaser printer: Printing process

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Commonly Used Printers

• All-in-one peripherals– Scanner, copier, printer and fax– Popular in home offices– Prices are very reasonable

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Comparing Printers

• Determine what you can spend• Initial cost• Cost of operating• Image quality

– Also known as print resolution, is usually measured in dots per inch (dpi).

• Speed– Printer speed is measured in the number of pages per minute

(ppm) the device can print.– Most consumer-level laser printers offer print speeds of 6 or 8

ppm, – But high-volume professional laser printers can exceed 50 ppm.

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High-Quality Printers

• Special purpose printers

– Used by a print shop

– Output is professional grade

– Prints to a variety of surfaces

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High-Quality Printers

• Photo printers

• Thermal wax printers

• Dye sublimation printers

• Plotters

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High-Quality Printers

• Photo printers– Produces film quality pictures– Prints very slow– Prints a variety of sizes– Many larger-format photo printers can print multiple

images on a single sheet of paper

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High-Quality Printers

• Thermal wax printers– Used primarily for presentation graphics and

handouts.– Create bold colors and have a low per-page cost for

printouts with heavy color requirements, such as posters or book covers.

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High-Quality Printers

• Thermal wax printers– Color generated by melting wax.– Colors do not bleed. – Operation costs are low.– Output is slow.

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High-Quality Printers

• Dye sublimation printers– A ribbon containing panels of color is moved across a

focused heat source capable of subtle temperature variations.

– The heated dyes evaporate from the ribbon and diffuse on specially coated paper or another material, where they form areas of different colors.

– Produces realistic output

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High-Quality Printers

• Dye sublimation printers– Very high quality– Color is produced by evaporating ink– Operation costs are high– Output is very slow

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High-Quality Printers

• Plotters– A plotter is a special kind of output device. – Used to print large-formal images , such as construction

drawings created by an architect.– Large high quality images– Older models draw with pens– Operational costs are low– Output is very slow