Difference Between Impact Printer and Non Impact Printer

Impact Printer vs Non Impact Printer

Summary: Difference Between Impact Printer and Non Impact Printer is that Impact printer is a type of printer that forms characters and graphics on a piece of paper by striking a mechanism against an inked ribbon that contacts the paper physically. While Non-impact printers is a type of printers that forms characters and graphics on a piece of paper without actually striking the paper.

Impact Printer

Impact printer is a type of printer that forms characters and graphics on a piece of paper by striking a mechanism against an inked ribbon that contacts the paper physically. For printing multi-part forms impact printers are ideal because they easily print through different layers of papers. Two commonly used impact printers are line printers and dot-matrix printers.

Types of Impact Printer

Dot-matrix printer produce printed images, they produce image when tine wire pins on a print head mechanism strike an inked ribbon. The ribbon then pressed against the paper and it creates dots on a paper that form characters and graphics.

These printers mostly use continuous form paper in which thousands of sheets of paper are connected with each other from end to end. These pages have holes along the sided so it can help it feed the paper through printer. Their speed can be measured in cps (characters per second) and most dot-matrix printers are having speed of 375-1100 characters per second which also depends on the desired print quality.

Line printer is a type of impact printer which is high-speed and printer an entire line at a time. Their speed can only be measured by the number of lines (lpm) they can print. Many line printers can print as many as 3000 lines per minute.

Non-Impact Printer

Non-impact printers is a type of printers that forms characters and graphics on a piece of paper without actually striking the paper. Some non-impact printers spray and some use heat or pressure to produce images. Most commonly used non-impact printers are ink-jet printers, photo printers, laser printers, thermal printers, mobile printers, plotters, and large-format printers.

Types of Non-Impact Printer

Ink-jet printer is a type of non-impact printer which sprays tiny drops of liquid ink onto a piece of paper to form graphics and characters. They become very popular in color printers for use in home. They produce graphics and text in both black-and-white and can produce color text and graphics on different variety of papers. Reasonable ink-jet printer costs less than $100.

Photo-lab-quality pictures can be produced by a type of non-impact printer known as Photo printer. Some of them can print one or two sizes of photos, e.g 3 3 5 inches and 4 3 6 inches. But other photo printers can print up to legal size, letter size or they can even print larger. Many of them use ink-jet technology and some of them can print letter-sized documents too, users connect them to their computer and complete all their printing needs.

A photo printer is a color printer that produces photo-lab-quality pictures. Some photo printers print just one or two sizes of photos, for example, 3 3 5 inches and 4 3 6 inches. Others print up to letter size, legal size, or even larger. Many photo printers use ink-jet technology. With models that can print letter-sized documents, users connect the photo printer to their computer and use it for all their printing needs.

Laser printer is a high-quality, high-speed type of non-impact printer. They use individual sheets of paper that are stored in one or more removable tray that slide in the printer case when they work with personal computers.