What Is a Printer?

A printer is a hardware device that translates digital data from a computer and prints it onto a physical medium such as paper in various sizes. There are many different types of printers available today ranging from simple monochrome text devices to color photo printers. They can be connected to a single computer either directly via dedicated cables like the USB or through a local network using either cables (Ethernet) or radio (WiFi). They can also operate on a standalone basis.

The earliest mechanical printing machines were developed in the 1800s and used dot matrix technology. Charles Babbage was one of the first to create these devices with his Difference Engine.

When a person prints something on their printer the information is actually printed on a piece of special thermal or laser printable media. It is then cut and folded to the desired size to form a page. There are several types of printers that can be used to produce this type of media including inkjet, laser, and thermal printers.

Modern printers use either PCL (Printer Control Language) or PostScript to convert the instructions sent from a computer into code that the printer understands. The majority of printers sold today come from the factory with support for these two languages.

The resolution of a printer is typically expressed in dots per inch (DPI). The higher the DPI number the better the quality, but it can add up to quite a large cost over time if you are printing high volumes of pages.