Printers

INK-JET PRINTERS

Ink-jet printers spray ink at high speed onto the surface of paper. This process not only produces a letter quality image but also permits print ing to be done in a variety of colors, making them ideal for select special applications. Ink-jet printers are the most widely used printers. They are reliable, quiet, and relatively inexpensive. The most costly aspect of ink-jet printers is replacing the ink cartridges. For this reason, most users specify black ink for the majority of print jobs and use the more expensive color printing for select applications. Typical ink-jet printers produce 17 to 19 pages per minute of black-only output and 13 to 15 pages of color output.

LASER PRINTERS

The laser printer uses a technology similar to that used in a photocopying machine. Laser printers use a laser light beam to produce images with excel lent letter and graphics quality. More expensive than ink-jet printers, laser printers are faster and are used in applications requiring high-quality output. There are two categories of laser printers. Personal laser printers typically do not support color, are less expensive, and are used by many single users. They typically can print 15 to 17 pages a minute. Shared laser printers typically sup port color, are more expensive, and are used (shared) by a group of users. Shared laser printers typically print over 50 pages a minute.

THERMAL PRINTERS

A thermal printer uses heat elements to produce images on heat-sensitive paper. These printers are widely used with ATMs and gasoline pumps to print receipts. Color thermal printers, known as dye-sublimation printers, use specially treated paper to produce very high-quality artwork and text. Due to their high pur chase cost and the cost of the special paper, these printers are typically limited to specialized applications. They are, however, widely used in professional art and design work where very high-quality color is essential.

OTHER PRINTERS

These printers include dot-matrix printers, plotters, photo printers, and portable printers:

• Dot-matrix printers form characters and images using a series of small pins on a print head. Once a widely used microcomputer printer, they are inexpensive and reliable but quite noisy. In general, they are used for tasks where high-quality output is not required.

• Plotters are special-purpose printers for producing a wide range of specialized output. Using output from graphics tablets and other graphical input devices, plotters create maps, images, and architectural and engineering drawings. Plotters are typically used by graphic artists, engineers, and architects to print out designs, sketches, and drawings.

• Photo printers are special-purpose printers designed to print photo-quality images from digital cameras. Most photo printers print 3 x 5" or 4 x 6" images on glossy, photo-quality paper.

• Portable printers are usually small and lightweight printers designed to work with a notebook computer. Portable printers may be ink-jet or laser printers, print in black and white or color, and connect with USB or parallel port connections.