types of printers

How many of you have printers at your house? Most of you might have since we are having an online/offline market jam-packed with amazing options indeed. The printer has become a need at home and office both these days when most of us do work from home too. If you are one of them going to buy a printer this below-mentioned information would be quite helpful. Let us check it out 

A Brief Of Glorious History Of Printers  

The foundation of printers was laid back in the 1960s and was famous by the name of "Xerox" back then. Who knew then that this would make the base for the upcoming laser beam technology? It all started with the aim of sharing knowledge and communicating ideas. It was known to be a device used to get a hardcopy of any document, and in today's time, it does so much more than that. These days many printer companies are popular such as Epson Printers, HP, and so on.


The very first computing printer was introduced in 1976 was IBM 3800 and was the industry's first high-speed official laser printer. With the printing speed of 100 impressions per minute, it brought a revolution in the printing industry. Then came the inkjet printer, and with this, a thing like a printer could be seen in homes also. It shows that the printer holds a glorious history and still revolving so fast. Wireless Printers are also making a huge buzz at the forefront.  

First Apple LaserWriter 

Before this, they were confined within office premises only, but HP (Hewlett Packard) understood its need in the household as well. After this, only when people were getting over the invention of inkjet printer, Hp Printers introduced their famous LaserJet 4 that had 600 by 600 dots per inch, a revolutionized laser printer of all times. All these printers came at a hefty price and especially the Xerox Star that cost $17,000 in 1981. 

First HP LaserJet 4 printer

The printing industry gave birth to so many more business opportunities like printing ink, printing papers, etc. Printing industry alone is a $900 billion a year business and prints trillions of pages in a single country. This 3 digit figure can be validated by the fact that any business today cannot stay relevant without printing services either of their own or outsourced from somewhere.

Ok, now without wasting any further time, let us dive into the type of printers that exist in the present.

Broad Categories

In this section, we are going to talk about the broad categories. Let us check it out about this in a detailed manner 

Impact Printer
Non-Impact Printer

Impact Printer

An impact printer is a type of printer that operates by striking a plastic head against an ink ribbon, and then the ink ribbon is pressed against the paper marking the page with the required character. Got too technical, in layman language an impact printer is the one that uses head, needle, and ink ribbon to get the required mark on the paper.

Let us check it out the type of Impact printers

Dot Matrix Printer 

They are one of the oldest types of printers that are still relevant in today's time. In this, the print head scans a page, and the wire is pushed out with precision timing. It forms characters or images with the help of dots in horizontal patterns. They are used to draw simple line drawings and bar codes. AS they are old fashioned, they make buzzing sounds and are not suitable for the office environment. The good thing about dot matrix printers is that they are quite affordable and have low maintenance costs. 

Chain printer

This is another type of impact printer having a set of metal characters and numbers arranged in a continuous loop. As soon as the row of hammers strikes the characters, they come on the paper. This has the speed of several hundred lines per minute, which is far faster than the dot matrix printer is. Although the noise factor remains with the chain printer also but is primitively the best for printing graphics and hence is more costly.

Daisy Wheel printer  

Daisy wheel printers were the substitute for typewriters, which uses the mechanism of a set of modeled characters arranged around the circumference of a circle. It derives its name daisy as each letter sits at the end of a thin metal, which all-together looks like a daisy. One can quickly get print with different fonts with daisy wheel printer and its working is quieter than the previously mentioned printers are. 

Drum printer  

They are quite similar to the chain printers in terms of printing speed and other features. The electric hammers strike the paper by forcing it against the paper. Drum printers make less noise than chain printers as the drum attached makes very little or no noise at all. 

Types of Non-Impact printers

In this section, we are going to add all about non-impact printers in a detailed manner. Let us check it out 

Laser printer  

Laser short form of Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation is the fastest non-impact printer. It transfers the image of the output on paper using LASER technology and toner. The best thing is that they are huge in size, and that is why also called Large Printers considered ideal for office uses indeed. Whereas toner is an ink powder which is also used in the photocopiers also. The best part about laser printers is that they can print both text and high-quality resolution graphics. Printing speed is about 4-32 pages per minute and varies with different laser printers. 

Ink-Jet printer  

The mechanism behind an inkjet printer is very much different from a laser printer. The outputs on the paper are created by spraying tiny drops of ink. The ink is embedded inside an inkjet printer within a print cartridge, which has small fine nozzles that look like a matrix. The resolution of a typical inkjet printer is around 300 to 720 dpi (dots per inch). They come at a lower price as compared to laser printers, but the print quality is a little less than the laser printer. However, when compared to the dot matrix printer, it is faster as well as prints with higher quality. Printing speed is around 1-6 pages per minute. 

Thermal printer  

With this, we have reached the third type of non-impact printer. A thermal printer is a special type of printer that can print only on a special heat-sensitive waxy paper. The dots are burned, giving a special effect on the paper. They produce high-quality printouts but are quite expensive. - 3D printer

This is the most recently discovered non-impact kind of printer. They are majorly used to make three-dimensional solid objects from a digital file. The magic behind 3D the printer is an additive process in which an object is created by laying down successive layers of material. They make producing complex shapes possible using less material, which was not the case with the traditional methods. 

LED Printer

A very close relative of the laser printer, an LED printer uses a drum, toner, and user system to apply colored or black toner on the paper. The only difference between the two is that the laser printer uses toner attracting static charges to print while an LED printer uses a strip of LEDs for the same. 

They are although less known but have many benefits. 

One is that they have no moving parts, and thus printing is faster. 
They are also highly energy-efficient and save a lot of energy. 

These were the main types of printers readily used in different types of industries and producing so many copies daily. But as it is said that "Necessity is the mother of invention" we all hope to get new inventions done in the printing industry as well and bring better printing experiences. 

3D Printer 

Most of you have already heard about 3D printers since they are high in demand. The best thing is that they are quite affordable for professionals as well as domestic users too. Here, it needs to mention that modern 3D printers are considered capable of producing 3D objects as well as items going with high-quality resin. The benefits of 3D printer, there are many such as you will have third prints, unlimited possibilities, and the capacity to go with full customization. Talking about the disadvantages, they are a bit costly and still in the developing phase. 

It shows how the printer has brought a great change to our lives. Talking about the quality oriented-printers, Canon Printers are known for its amazing features and specifications indeed. 

In The last 

I hope the above-mentioned information would be helpful to you. If you have been looking forward to Buy Printers, especially a quality based printer, your dilemmas may go away going with this information. So, what are you waiting for? It is time to go with an ideal option, indeed.