View Full Term. By clicking sign up, you agree to receive emails from Techopedia and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. An impact printer is a type of printer that works by direct contact of an ink ribbon with paper. A metal or plastic head strikes the ink ribbon, whereby the ribbon is pressed against the paper and the desired character letter, digit, dot, line impression is printed on the sheet.
Dot matrix, daisy-wheel and ball printers are some commonly used types of impact printers. As the name suggests, an impact printer physically impacts the sheet of paper. For example, on a dot matrix printer a grid of pins, whose combinations form characters, is present of the end of metal or plastic striker. This head strikes on ribbon ink that prints characters on paper. Impact printers are not widely used because of the noise they make when striker hits on ink ribbon while printing, and are now largely considered obsolete.
Non-impact printers such as laser and inkjet printers are far more commonly used in workplaces and far commercial use. 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 also suffered from an inability to print in anything but monochromatic or black.
Since the process requires a ribbon that is struck by each head, the same color is used throughout the entire printing process. The advent of toner-based and inkjet printers that use individual cartridges of color and pigment to create the completed image made reliable and affordable color printing much more accessible. Toner-based printers use a laser and electrostatic to apply dry ink to a page, while inkjet printers propel liquid ink directly onto a surface to create an image or text.
Dot matrix printers, which are a particular type of impact printer, allow greater customization of text, and simple image printing as well.
All dot matrix printers create characters on paper by striking an inked ribbon with a hard surface. Unlike typewriters, which use a similar mechanism, dot matrix printers do not have fixed character shapes or fonts. Instead, each individual character is formed by the arrangement of a series of pins. Dot matrix printouts often produce lower-quality text that can be difficult to read. In addition, dot matrix printers generally are noisier than inkjet or laser models.
They work best on uncoated, relatively thin paper. Unlike laser or inkjet printers, however, dot matrix machines are appropriate for use with multiple-part forms, such as shipping paperwork and invoices. Due to their impact-based printing functions, they can print on all the parts of a single form in just one pass.
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