Printers have become an essential part of our routine office work. Most of us use them in offices and at home but do not actually know the answer to “How does a printer work?” Printer converts the soft copy of data into a hard copy. It comes in two categories, impact printers and non-impact printers. Impact printer creates image by touching the paper while non-impact printer does not touch the paper for creating an image. Impact printers include dot matrix printer and daisy wheel printer. Dot matrix printer contains a set of pins that strike an ink-soaked ribbon against the paper to form the image. Non-impact printers include inkjet printers and laser printers that ensures greater control over the quality and resolution of an image as compared to impact printers. Let us start discussing how works a printer by explaining the working of inkjet and laser printers one by one.

How does an Inkjet printer work actually depend upon the method employed to print the images. An Inkjet printer contains multiple nozzles that creates image by spraying tiny dots of ink on the paper. These tiny dots are precisely placed with perfect resolution of 1440 x 720 dots per inch (dpi). An Inkjet printer employs two methods for printing images on paper. The first method is thermal bubble method and second is piezoelectric method. In thermal bubble method resistors present in printer heat up to form multiple bubbles in the ink. These bubbles collapse and push the ink into cartridge that creates image on paper. While in piezoelectric method ink electric current is produced to vibrate the small crystals present in the nozzle. This vibration pushes the ink into cartridge to form the image on paper. Piezoelectric method produces smaller drops as compared to thermal bubble method to ensure producing the better quality image.

How does a laser printer work depends upon the principle of static electricity used in it to produce the quality images. The basic components of a laser printer includes a laser unit, toner, drum, roller, fuser, corona wire and a discharge lamp. For printing images laser produces a beam that creates image on drum. The drum then rolls over the toner that passes through the fuser. The colors and particles present inside the toner transferred on to the paper. Fuser heats up the paper to mix the colors and particles in the toner thoroughly to create the image with perfect resolution and quality. A toner usually contains blue, red, yellow and black colors, which forms a variety of other colors by combining these basic colors. Laser printer is also known as page printer as it can print a page at one time.

Whether we talk about inkjet printers or laser printers, both passes through a series of simple functions to produce the final image. Exact resolution and color combination along with the perfect working of all parts is essential for a printer to create quality images on paper. Although this useful device has been introduced in 70s, however it took many years for an average consumer to purchase and use it for his personal use.