Field Guide · hardware

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

inkjet laser printhead droplets sprays liquid ink drum toner fuses powder with heat
The two dominant printer types work very differently: an inkjet sweeps a printhead over the page and sprays liquid-ink droplets, while a laser charges a drum, coats it with toner powder, and fuses that powder onto the paper with heat.

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 among several machines.

Inkjet vs laser

The choice usually comes down to what and how much you print:

Trait Inkjet Laser
Marks with Liquid ink droplets Fused toner powder
Best at Color, photos Fast, crisp text
Speed Slower Faster
Cost per page Higher Lower
Up-front cost Lower Higher

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

  1. Printer (computing) — Wikipedia, on printers as output devices. ↩

See also