Copyright © 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill Technology Education Copyright © 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

McGraw-Hill Technology Education Chapter 4B Printing

4B-3 Commonly Used Printers Impact printers –Creates an image by using pins or hammers to press an inked ribbon against the paper. –Each hammer is embossed with the shape of a letter. –E.g. dot matrix, line printer and band printers Non-impact printers –Use methods other than force –Tend to be quiet and fast –E.g. Ink jet and laser printers

4B-4 Commonly Used Printers Dot matrix printers –Impact printer –Used to print multi-sheet pages –Mechanism called Print head, contains a cluster (or matrix) or short pins arranged in one or more columns. The printer can push any of the pins out in any combination and strikes an inked ribbon, which then press ink from the ribbon onto the paper. –More pins results in higher resolution –Lowest-resolution dot matrix have 9 pins (arranged in 1 column) –Highest-resolution dot matrix have 24 pins (arranged in 2 columns)

4B-5 Dot Matrix Print Head Dot matrix printers – –Speed is measured in characters per second (cps) – –Slowest dot matrix printer creates 50 to 70 characters – –Fastest printer creates 500+ cps.

4B-6 Dot Matrix Print Head Line Printers – –Special type of impact printer. – –Works like dot matrix but uses a special wide print head that can print an entire line of text at one time. – –Fastest can print 3,000 lines of text per minute. Band Printers – –Features a rotating band embossed with alphanumeric characters. – –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

4B-7 Commonly Used Printers Ink-jet printers –Non-impact printer –Inexpensive home printer –Creates an image directly on the paper by spraying ink through tiny nozzles. –Horizontal and vertical plates (electrically charged) control direction of ink jet spray. –Color output common using CMYK ( Cyan, magenta, yellow, black –Only maintenance is replacement of ink cartridge –Speed measured in pages per minute (ppm) –Quality expressed as dots per inch (dpi), usually 300 dpi

4B-8 Dots Per Inch

4B-9 Commonly Used Printers Laser printer –Non-impact printer –Produces high quality documents –Color or black and white –Print process Just as electron gun in a monitor can target any pixel, the laser in a laser printer can aim at any point on a drum, creating an electrical charge. Toner, composed of tiny particles of ink, sticks to the drum in the places the laser has charged. Then, with pressure and heat, the toner is transferred off the drum onto the paper. Amount of memory determines the speed

Laser Printers –Color laser printer works like a single-color model, except that the process is repeated four times (one for each CMYK) –Speed measured in pages per minute –Quality expressed as dots per inch –Single-color (black) can produce 4 to 16 pages of text in a minute –Most common resolutions are 300 to 600 dpi. –Some high-end models have resolution from 1,200 to 1,800 dpi. 4B-10

4B-11 Commonly Used Printers All-in-one peripherals –Scanner, copier, printer and fax –Popular in home offices –Prices are very reasonable

4B-12 Comparing Printers Determine what you need Determine what you can spend Initial cost Cost of operating Image quality Speed

4B-13 High-Quality Printers Plotters –Large high quality blueprints –Older models draw with pens –Operational costs are low –Output is very slow

Copyright © 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill Technology Education Chapter 4B End of Chapter