A printer is a peripheral device that makes a persistent representation of graphics or text, often on flat media such as paper. The term is used in computing for devices that produce output that is human-readable, but a broad range of different printers exist including 3D printers and thermal printers. The first computer printer was designed by Charles Babbage for his difference engine in the 19th century, and modern printing is often done with laser or inkjet technology.
Several factors impact the quality of prints, most significantly ink or toner cartridge life and environmental variables like temperature. Other factors include the type of paper used and the frequency of usage. Printers can connect to computers via dedicated data cables like USB or wireless options such as Bluetooth, WiFi, and Ethernet. Some can also function independently of the host computer and use memory cards as a source of images to print.
When a document is sent to the printer it is transferred to a drum in the device along with a magnetic powder, which consists of toner particles that are attracted to areas of the drum that are not positively charged. A laser or LED then illuminates the drum in the outline of the intended image. As the drum is rotated, the toner particles are transferred to the page, which is then rolled off the device to complete the print.
Early character printers (like daisy wheel systems and line printers) can only handle simple, plain text data, while other types of printers such as pen plotters or dot matrix systems process vector or bitmap image data. More recent printing technologies such as PCL or PostScript support a wide variety of both.
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