Tukuran Technical – Vocational High School

Learning Activity Sheet in Internet and Computing Fundamentals (ICF 7)

Second Quarter - Week 5: TYPES OF PRINTERS
Learning Competencies:
 Differentiate between various types of printers
 Determine which printer is more suitable for home versus office use

Printers are one of the most commonly used output devices that produce a hard copy of document stored in
electronic form, i.e., they put information from computer on to paper.
There are various kinds of printers available today like Impact printers, Bubble-jet printers, Laser printers,
Thermal printers, etc.

Types of Printers:

1. Impact Printers
Impact printers are among the old printing technologies, which make use of inked ribbon to make an imprint
on the paper. Impact printers are considered noisy when compared to other printers. The most commonly known
impact printers are:

i. Daisy-wheel printer
It works on the same principle as ball-head typewriter and consists of a disk made of
plastic or metal on which characters stand out along the outer edge. The printer rotates the disk
to print a character until the desired letter is facing the paper, after which a hammer called
solenoid strikes forcing the character to hit an ink ribbon making a mark of the character on the
paper.

i. Dot matrix printer

Figure 5.1 A typical dot-matrix printer is shown in the figure on the
right. It consists of a print head, sheet guide assembly, platen
Daisy-wheel Printer
knob, and covers. The name Dot-Matrix refers to the mechanism
the printer uses to print characters on paper i.e., dots.

Figure 5.2 Dot Matrix Printer

2. Solid Ink Printers
Solid-Ink printers use ink in a waxy solid form than liquid form which avoids problems like spillage. And these
kinds of printers print one line at a time and these printers are best suitable for graphic companies that need true
color at a price lower than a color laser printer.
Advantages and Disadvantages of solid ink printers:
Advantages are good print quality, ease of use and generate less waste and the disadvantages include more
power consumption and odor of wax.
Solid ink printers are less sensitive to paper thickness and paper fibers. This allows printing on a number of
different surfaces including recycled and handmade paper.

3. Thermal Printers
3.1 Direct Thermal printer

Direct Thermal printer use a heated printhead to burn dots into the surface of special heat-sensitive
paper. It is similar to older fax machines. The disadvantage in this is that the paper that is used gets darken
early, thus making difficult to read.

3.2 Thermal wax-transfer printer

Thermal wax-transfer printers use a heat-sensitive-ribbon instead of heat-sensitive paper. Thermal

printhead melts wax-based ink from the ribbon on to the paper. The disadvantages with thermal transfer
printers are that the heating and cooling of the print head determines their speed which means that since the
printhead is extensively used, it has to be replaced often.

4. Inkjet Printers
Inkjet printers are those that place extremely small droplets of ink onto paper to create an image. They use a
reservoir of aqueous ink, a pump and an ink nozzle to accomplish this. These dots are extremely small and can have
different colors combined together to create photo-quality images. They essentially work by shooting ink onto paper.
Both inkjet and laser printers are non-impact printers in the sense that they do not have mechanisms that physically
touch paper in order to create images. However, unlike laser printers, inkjet printers use aqueous ink that
spontaneously colors the paper (unlike toner from laser printers that has to be fused into the paper with a fuser).
 Parts of a typical inkjet
printer:
f. Output tray
a. Edge guide
g. Output tray extension
b. Sheet feeder
h. Scanner unit
c. Paper support
i. ON button
d. Feeder guard
e. Document cover
Figure 5.3 Inkjet Printer

5. Laser Printers

Laser printers are the fastest and most popular

printers on the market today. They produce extremely
high quality images - some near photo quality.
The main principle in the working of laser printer
is static electricity i.e., they use electro photography, or
an electrophotostatic process, to form images on paper.
The basis of the principles involved here is the science of
atoms - oppositely-charged atoms are attracted to each
other, so opposite static electricity fields cling together.
Figure 5.4 Laser Printer

ACTIVITY 1: Refer to figure 5.3 and match the parts of an inkjet printer to each of its function. Write the letter of the
correct answer on the space provided.

Parts of a typical inkjet Function:

printer: A. Turns the printer on and off
__ 1. Edge guide B. Open and close when you replace an ink cartridge
__ 2. Sheet feeder C. Supports the ejected paper
__ 3. Paper support D. Receives ejected paper
__ 4. Feeder guard E. Open and close when you place a photo or document
__ 5. Document cover F. Prevents objects placed on the document cover from falling inside the
__ 6. Output tray printer
__ 7. Output tray extension G. Supports the paper loaded in the sheet feeder
__ 8. Scanner unit H. Helps load the paper straight
__ 9. ON button I. Feeds a stack of paper automatically

ACTIVITY 2: Answer the following questions below. Refer to the link provided below for some online research.

1. Give at least 3 leading companies that manufacture printers.

2. Discuss why an inkjet printer is more suitable for office use than a dot-matrix printer.

Prepared by:
REFERENCES:
EFREN M. TABUADA
 https://bit.ly/3dEcbzY