Printer Technology : Evolution and Future Prospects

In our daily activities, at work and elsewhere, we are always benefiting from the advantages of materials recorded on paper. In the office, our work is based on the use of reports, memos, circulars, and other documents. And in recent years, it has become common practice to print out documents created on a computer, or information downloaded from the Internet. Then there are, of course, the print-based media, such as newspapers, magazines, and books. The main features of documents recorded onto paper are : readability, handleability, preservability, searchability, transportability, and processability.1) Paper documents are particularly easy to read and this, allied with the fact that are easy to handle and to preserve once something has been transferred to paper, it stays there means that they provide an interface for visual information that is excellently suited to human beings. If paper is currently the best interface for use by people, then printers are the devices which record information from computers onto that interface, and the increasing number of pages printed out to paper are testament to the way that paper has been able to display its excellent characteristics as a medium, with the advent of computers and printers. Printers are developing at immense speed in the direction of high image quality, compact design, low price, high-speed output, and colour printing. The range of printer applications is growing ever wider, with a whole range of different printing methods being used to satisfy various requirements and conditions. As well as domestic and office use, printers are being used to produce tickets, barcodes, posters, signboards, and much more. Here, I would like to take a look at the evolution of printer technology.