Important Printer Terminology

Understanding printer terminology helps one toDifferent terms used to explain types of printing
search for, select and operate printers in a betterare duplex printing, 4x6 printing, 6 ink printing, 7
and effective way. One of these important printerink printing and 8 ink printing. Of these, duplex
terms is DPI which stands for Dots per inch. It isprinting refers to two sided printing whereby the
a quantity used to define the resolution of printerprinter itself reverses the page after one of the
images. The higher the DPI, the greater will be thesides has been printed. 4x6 printing produces
details with which the image is displayed. Thephotograph of snapshot size, while 6, 7 and 8 ink
term used to measure the printing speed isprinting technologies employ multiple inks to
known as PPM. PPM stands for pages per minuteproduce high quality, clear and bright results.
and defines the number of pages printed by aAnti aliasing is an important technology whereby a
machine in one minute.printer applies mathematical formulae to improve
Another important term used to define thethe resolution of character edges.Letter Quality
performance of a printer is bit depth. It definesrefers to a printer that is able to produce text
the number of various color tones linked with asimilar to that produced by a type writer. Near
dot. A bit depth of 1 implies 2 colors, a depth of 8letter quality refers to dot matrix printers which
implies 256 colors and that of 24 implies 16.7produce text almost similar to that produced by a
million colors. Color balance is a term used toletter quality printer.
describe the print quality. It is a measure of anPaper capacity indicates the maximum number of
image color cast. Duty cycle is the number ofprinter papers or other media a printer tray is
printed pages a printer can produce as an output.able to contain. Print zone refers to the part of
AIO and MFP stand for All in one and Multifunctionthe sheet on which the printer is supposed to
Printer respectively. These terms refer toprint.
machines that are a combination of printer, copierBorderless printing is a terminology used to define
and scanner. An inkjet printer terminology isa technique whereby photos are produced by a
CYMK which defines the inkjet colors. In CYMK, Cprinter with no blank spaces at the edges of the
stands for cyan, Y stands for yellow, M standspage. Brightness refers to the lightness or
for magenta and K stands for black. A term useddarkness of the printed image. A pixel refers to
as an alternative for printer brand name is OEMone of the thousand dots of which a digital
ink cartridges or printers which stands for Originalphotograph is made of.
Equipment Manufacturer.