What Is A Printer?

Date First Published: 5th July 2023

Topic: Computer Systems

Subtopic: Computer Hardware

Article Type: Computer Terms & Definitions

Difficulty: Easy

Difficulty Level: 1/10

CONTENTS

How Does A Printer Work?
Types Of Printers
Features To Look For In Printers

Learn about what a printer is in this article.

A printer is an output device that receives electronic data from a computer and prints documents on paper as a hard copy. For example, a printer can be used to print off copies of registration documents that can be given out to staff at the start of a meeting. Printers vary in printing speed, size, colour, and cost.

How Does A Printer Work?

Below is an explanation of how inkjet printers work.

Printers work by converting digital images and text into hard copies. At first, the software program sends the data to be printed to the printer driver. Most software programs, including Word include a Print option in the file menu, allowing print output settings to be chosen before sending the document to the printer. After choosing the appropriate settings, the Print button can then be selected. The driver then translates the data into a format that can be understood by the printer and checks to see if the printer is available to print and online. Next, the data is sent by the driver from the computer to the printer using the connection interface, which could be USB or Wi-Fi.

After the data has been sent, the printer receives the data from the computer. It stores a certain amount of data in a buffer, which ranges from 512 KB to 16 GB RAM, depending on the model.

Before printing, some steps will take place. If the printer has been unused for a while, it will usually go through a short clean cycle to ensure that the print head(s) are clean. The printer is ready to start printing once the clean cycle is finished.

When the printer is ready to start printing, the control circuitry activates the paper feed stepper motor. This engages the rollers which feed a sheet of paper from the paper feeder into the printer. When there is paper in the feeder, the small trigger will take place. If not, the printer may say something like 'out of paper', display a red LED light, and notify the computer.

Once the paper is fed into the printer, the print head stepper motor uses the belt to move the print head assembly across the page. The motor pauses for a tiny fraction of a second every time the print head sprays dots of ink on the page. Multiple dots are then made at each stop and the CMYK colours are sprayed in exact amounts. The paper feed stepper motor moves the paper a fraction of an inch at the end of each complete pass and the direction is reversed and moved back across the page until it prints. This process will continue until the page is printed.

Types Of Printers

Different types of printers include:

Inkjet printers - These print by spraying ink on paper. They are commonly used by consumers.
Laser printers - These print by passing a laser beam at a high speed over a metal drum. They are more commonly used by businesses.
3D printers - A relatively new type of printer. These create a physical object from a digital file. They work by constructing a three-dimensional object from a CAD or digital 3D model.
All-in-one printers - Also known as multifunctional printers, an all-in-one printer is made up of different peripheral functions and technologies, including scanning, copying, and faxing. One device can be used to print, scan, copy, and fax.
A3 printers - These types of printers support pages of up to A3 size. They are useful when printing posters, graphics, or large document pages that will not fit in an average inkjet or laser printer.
Thermal printers - These print by passing paper with a thermochromic coating. The print head consists of tiny electrically heated elements and produces an image in the area where the heated coating turns black.
LED printers - These are very similar to laser printers. The main difference is that they use an LED array as the light source in the print head to power their drum and toner rather than a laser.
Photo printers - Similar to inkjet printers. The main difference is that photo printers are specifically designed to print photos which require special paper that is coated to ensure that the ink does not smudge.
Dot matrix printers - These are rare types of printers that are used to print simple text. The printer uses dots to draw out an image or text for processing.

Features To Look For In Printers

Before purchasing a printer, five important features to look for include:

Colour - Most modern printers can print in colour, but not all can. Some printers can only print in black and white, which are known as mono printers. Compared to mono printers, colour printers are more expensive to run because they use more ink cartridges - black, cyan, magenta and yellow ink.
Speed - This measures how many sheets of paper a printer can produce per minute. When printing a lot, speed is an important feature. The amount of pages most printers can print per minute ranges from 4 to 400.
Memory - Most printers have a small amount of memory to store printer settings, printer fonts, and print jobs in the buffer. When printing out pages with large images, memory is an important feature.
Resolution - Measures the maximum number of droplets of ink a printer sprays in one square inch, measured in dots per inch (DPI). Printers with higher DPI produce clearer and more detailed images.
Connectivity options - All printers offer wired connectivity which can connect to a computer using a USB port. However, modern printers offer Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, which enables more than one device to use the printer at the same time without the need for a physical connection. Wi-Fi allows documents to be printed remotely when the computer is far away from the printer.