Printers Flashcards
Printers
Laser or InkJet: printers are a necessary part of any comput- er system. The choice you make will be dependent upon your budget and whether you believe color or quality is most important.
3D Printer
This type of printer takes information from an STL, OBJ, or CAD file and builds a three-dimensional object layer by layer.
AIO
An All-In-One printer in- corporates a printer and a scanner (and sometimes a fax) in one device. Sometimes these are called multifunction printers.
Imagesetter
A high resolution output device which produces single-color rasterized images on photographic paper or film. The paper or the film is used to create a proof, then to make a printing plate. Imagesetters are used in the printing industry.
Ink cartridge
A small plastic container filled with ink which will be sprayed onto the sur- face of the paper. There are black ink cartridges and color ink cartridges. Most printers cluster cyan, magenta and yel- low inks together into one car- tridge. Some inks are more permanent than others.
Inkjet printer
An output de- vice that creates text and im- ages by spraying tiny droplets of ink onto paper. Inkjet printers (starting at around $40) provide relatively inexpensive color, and newer ones create much better text than earlier models did. The draw-back to inkjet printers is that they don’t include Post- Script. Printing directly from Illustrator shouldn’t present a problem, but if you place an Illustrator EPS file in an XPress document, you may experi- ence difficulties printing to an inkjet.
Laser printer
An output de- vice which creates text and images on paper using pow- dered toner. A laser is directed by a mirror to create a charge on the toner drum. The drum picks up the toner and trans- fers it to the paper.
Laser printers provide fast output and crisp, clear text, but are much more expensive to purchase (starting at around $700 for one with PostScript). A laser toner cartridge (around $120) will last much longer than an inkjet cartridge (around $30).
Laser printers are also available with built-in Post- Script, which makes printing from DTP software much more convenient.
Platesetter
A high resolution output device which produces single-color rasterized images directly onto a printing plate. Platesetters are used in the printing industry.
PostScript interpreter
The standard workaround for print- ing postscript to an inkjet is to purchase a software-based postscript interpreter such as StyleScript or GhostScript. This requires additional RAM in your computer, additional steps during printing, and ad- ditional time to print a page. Unless the color output is im- portant to you you’d probably be better off with a PostScript compatible laser printer.
RIP
Raster Image Processor. A RIP converts a digital page into a high-resolution bitmap which will be sent on to an Imageset- ter or Platesetter. The resolu- tion of a RIP can range from 2540 Dots Per Inch to 5080 Dots Per Inch. A RIP is used in the printing industry.
Toner cartridge
Laser printers are designed to replace the entire toner cartridge when it runs out of toner. Most toner cartridges include a new imag- ing drum along with the toner, thus keeping print quality high year after year.
