What Is the Meaning of Impact Printer?

An impact printer forms characters by means of pins or a key striking a ribbon, leaving an imprint on paper. This method of output is the oldest printing technology still in production.

Impact Printing

Like the typewriter and teletype they evolved from, the impact printer imprints ink or other transferable media on paper by striking the ribbon with a set of pins or a character head. It is the lowest costing form of printing, and it is the only output device that can imprint multipart forms.

Dot Matrix Printing

A dot matrix printer forms characters by arranging a set of pins in the print head in the shape of the character. The simplest printers have a line of nine pins that are pushed as the head moves across the paper, forming rough characters. Later print heads hold 24 pins which improves the output quality.

Daisy Wheel Printing

A daisy wheel contains individual preformed characters, much like typewriter keys. The printer turns the wheel into place and strikes it against the ribbon and paper for each character. This type of impact printer is much slower than the dot matrix printer, but the output quality is much higher.

References

• Red Hat: Printers and Printing
• Jan's Computer Basics: Printer Types