Printers

Dot Matrix

Dot Matrix printers produce characters and illustrations by striking pins against an ink ribbon to print closely spaced dots in the appropriate shape. Dot-matrix printers do not produce high-quality output. However, they can print to multi-page forms (that is, carbon copies), something laser and ink-jet printers cannot do.

Dot-matrix printers vary in two important characteristics:

Laserjet

A laser printer is a common type of computer printer that produces high quality printing, and is able to produce both text and graphics. The three major advantages of laser printers over inkjets are sharper text, lower cost per page and much faster print speed, since the entire page is imaged at one time.

Inkjet

Inkjet printers are the most common type of computer printer for the general consumer. Inkjets are usually inexpensive, quiet, reasonably fast, and many models can produce high quality output.

Others

A photo printer is specifically designed to print high quality digital photos on photo paper. These printers usually have a very high number of nozzles and are capable of printing droplets as small as 1 picoliter.

Photo printers may have digital media readers (memory cards) to conveniently print pictures without a computer. Some can also print directly from a camera, or a camera in a docking station, that supports the ability