Printers
Most data is printed once you have created it and there are a vast number of different printers available to accomplish this. Most common are ink jet and laser printers both of which can now produce coloured output (at a cost).
Different types of printer
Laser printers produce high print quality at high speed. They are called "laser printers" due to the fact that they contain a small laser within them. There is a wide range of laser printer manufacturers and one buzzword to be aware of is Postscript, a type of printer which is designed to give very high quality reproduction of pictures.
Originally, most laser printers would only print in black and white (mono). More recently colour laser printers have dropped in price and are entering wide spread use. While many of these produce excellent results, you should be aware of the fact that the "price per page", especially if you are using a lot of colour on a page can be very high compared to the cost of printing in black and white.
Inkjet printers
Dot matrix printers work by firing a row of pins through an ink ribbon onto the paper. The more pins the print head has the higher the quality of the print, most modern dot matrix printers have 24 pins. Unfortunately, dot matrix printers can generate a lot of noise and do not produce a very high quality of print, especially when printing graphics. As a result, the inkjet printer has now largely replaced the dot matrix printer. Dot matrix printers are used for high volume / low quality printing, e.g. printing company pay slips
Most data is printed once you have created it and there are a vast number of different printers available to accomplish this. Most common are ink jet and laser printers both of which can now produce coloured output (at a cost).
Different types of printer
There are many different types of printers. In large organisations, laser printers are most commonly used because they can print very fast and give a very high quality output. In most organisations, the printers are connected to the computers via a network. This means that each person with a computer does not require his or her own printer. Each computer connected to the network can print using a particular shared printer. When you buy a printer, one of the things the salesperson will not necessarily stress is how much it will cost to keep that printer running. Laser printers do not use ink; they use something called toner which is normally supplied in a sealed unit called a toner cartridge. Each toner cartridge will allow you to print a certain amount of pages and when the toner is used up it needs to be replaced. In some cases the costs of these toner cartridges is very high. Ink jet printers can work out even more expensive to run
Laser printers
Laser printers produce high print quality at high speed. They are called "laser printers" due to the fact that they contain a small laser within them. There is a wide range of laser printer manufacturers and one buzzword to be aware of is Postscript, a type of printer which is designed to give very high quality reproduction of pictures.
Colour laser printers
Originally, most laser printers would only print in black and white (mono). More recently colour laser printers have dropped in price and are entering wide spread use. While many of these produce excellent results, you should be aware of the fact that the "price per page", especially if you are using a lot of colour on a page can be very high compared to the cost of printing in black and white.
Inkjet printers
Inkjet printers work by using tiny jets to spray ink onto the paper. Inkjet printers are very quiet in operation and produce print quality comparable to that of laser printers, though laser printers still have the edge in terms of speed. Inkjet printers are ideal for low volume printing where high quality print is required and speed is not a high priority, e.g. printing letters in a small office or in the home.
Dot Matrix printers
Dot matrix printers work by firing a row of pins through an ink ribbon onto the paper. The more pins the print head has the higher the quality of the print, most modern dot matrix printers have 24 pins. Unfortunately, dot matrix printers can generate a lot of noise and do not produce a very high quality of print, especially when printing graphics. As a result, the inkjet printer has now largely replaced the dot matrix printer. Dot matrix printers are used for high volume / low quality printing, e.g. printing company pay slips
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