A printer is an output peripheral that puts a computer’s text and images onto paper, turning a digital document into a physical page.1
Overview
Two technologies dominate the consumer and office market. Inkjet printers spray tiny droplets of liquid ink and excel at color and photos; laser printers fuse powdered toner onto the page and are faster, cheaper per page, and crisper for plain text. Many units are all-in-one devices that also scan and copy. A printer is a pure output device, receiving a print job from the operating system via a driver, and connects over USB, Wi-Fi, or a wired network so it can be shared.
Where it fits
For occasional documents an inkjet is cheap to buy; for steady text volume a laser saves money and frustration over time, since ink and toner costs often dwarf the price of the hardware itself. A networked printer lets every machine in a home or office print without a direct cable. In a software-centric setup like GopherTrunk a printer is incidental — useful for a paper frequency list or a printed log, but nothing the capture path needs.
Sources
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Printer (computing) — Wikipedia, on printers as output devices. ↩