An impact printer is a device that prints visual materials by etching letters or shapes onto paper. It is simplistic and suffers from problems such as changing ink ribbons, jammed heads, and inability to create different fonts and styles. Impact printers are monochrome and have been superseded by toner-based and inkjet printers. Dot-matrix printers allow for greater personalization of text and simple image printing.
An impact printer is a printing device typically used in conjunction with a computer that allows for the relatively rapid and repeatable printing of visual materials. While more often used in older printers for text, some forms of impact printers, such as dot-matrix printers, continue to be used for certain purposes. Superseded by toner-based and inkjet printers in most applications, an impact printer works by literally etching letters or shapes onto a piece of paper. Similar in function to a traditional typewriter, this process involves letter-shaped needles or heads striking an ink-soaked ribbon and striking a sheet of paper on the other side.
Designed to function similar to old-fashioned typewriters, an impact printer is somewhat simplistic but suffered from many of the same problems that typewriters faced. Impact printer users had to worry about changing ink ribbons, jammed heads, and the inability for most models to create different fonts and styles, as well as the lack of the ability to create images. Bold fonts and underlining can be achieved by overstriking, which is applying two or more impacts to the same area of paper. Since the letters themselves were part of the physical construction of the printer, without changing the heads with the letters on them, a user could not change the style or font of the printed text.
Impact printers have also suffered from the inability to print in anything but monochrome or black. Because the process requires a ribbon that is hit by each head, the same color is used throughout the entire printing process. The advent of toner-based and inkjet printers that use individual color and pigment cartridges to create the complete image has made reliable and affordable color printing much more accessible. Toner-based printers use a laser and electrostatics to apply dry ink to a page, while inkjet printers push liquid ink directly onto a surface to create an image or text.
Dot matrix printers, which are a particular type of impact printer, allow for greater personalization of text and even simple image printing. Instead of using heads with letters on them, a dot-matrix printer uses a tiny needle to etch ink from the ribbon onto the page in a tiny dot. These dots are combined together by the eyes and mind of an observer into small patterns that form letters and images. Similar in appearance to some newspaper images, dot-matrix printers are still used in some businesses because the physical impact of the process allows for reliable printing of both carbon and carbonless copies.
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