The piece of hardware used for printing documents in many homes and businesses, especially a dot matrix, laser, or inkjet printer is known as a desktop printer. It is a smaller, more compact, lower volume printer than similar printers found in commercial print shops.
A desktop printer usually fits on a desk or table although larger floor model printers found in some businesses may also be considered desktop printers. The floor models are used for the same type of printing — documents on paper or transparencies typically — but are more heavy-duty and built for high volume usage. It may be referred to as an office printer or network printer but works in much the same way as comparable personal desktop printer models.
The typical desktop printer is a laser or inkjet printer used for personal printing at home or by an individual or just a handful of workers in an office. Many desktop printers today are also multifunction or all-in-one printers that combine scanning/copying and sometimes faxing with desktop printing.
Desktop Printing and Desktop Publishing
The first desktop laser printer, Hewlett-Packard's LaserJet, helped to usher in the era of desktop publishing in the mid-1980's along with the Apple Macintosh and Aldus (now Adobe) PageMaker for the Mac. Shortly thereafter Apple introduced the LaserWriter, the first desktop laser printer with PostScript. The inkjet printer was invented in 1976 but didn't really catch on for home use until the late 80s after the first HP DeskJet inkjet printer came out. Today, the vast majority of desktop printers in homes are inkjet printers.- How to do desktop publishing and desktop printing outlines a simple 10 step tutorial that provides an overview of the desktop publishing process when you don't need to worry about the extra steps required in preparing files for commercial printing.
- How to do desktop printing from a laser or inkjet home or office printer offers tips and ideas for getting the best output from a desktop printer. In addition to choosing a printer and understanding how they work, there are tips on setting print options, doing a print preview, getting faster printing, and choosing paper for desktop printing.
- Do you need a PostScript printer to do desktop publishing? Get familiar with PostScript and then decide if the way you do desktop publishing really requires a PostScript printer or if non-PostScript printers will do.
- Calibrating your printer along with calibrating your monitor helps to insure that the color you see on screen is not vastly different from the colors printed from your desktop printer.
- What's the difference between a commercial printer and a desktop printer? A desktop printer is a piece of hardware. A commercial printer is a person or a company that utilizes a variety of printing devices, including a printing press.
- How does offset printing differ from desktop printing? The ink and how it is placed on the page and the differences in desktop printers and printing presses differentiate each of these methods of putting text and images on paper.
