KNOW ABOUT THE PRINTING TECHNOLOGY

In the 1980s, dot-matrix and laser printers were pre-dominant, with inkjet technology not
emerging in any significant way until the 1990s. The laser printer was introduced by Hewlett-
Packard in 1984, based on technology developed by Canon. It worked in a similar way to a
photocopier, the difference being the light source. With a photocopier a page is scanned with
a bright light, while with a laser printer the light source is, not surprisingly, a laser. After that
the process is much the same, with the light creating an electrostatic image of the page onto
a charged photoreceptor, which in turn attracts toner in the shape of an electrostatic charge.

Laser printers quickly became popular due to the high quality of their print and their relatively
low running costs. As the market for lasers has developed, competition between
manufacturers has become increasingly fierce, especially in the production of budget models.
Prices have gone down and down as manufacturers have found new ways of cutting costs.
Output quality has improved, with 600dpi resolution becoming more standard, and build has
become smaller, making them more suited to home use.

Laser printers have a number of advantages over the rival inkjet technology. They produce
much better quality black text documents than inkjets, and they tend to be designed more for
the long haul - that is, they turn out more pages per month at a lower cost per page than
inkjets. So, if it's an office workhorse that's required, the laser printer may be the best option.
Another factor of importance to both the home and business user is the handling of
envelopes, card and other non-regular media, where lasers once again have the edge over
inkjets.

Considering what goes into a laser printer, it is amazing they can be produced for so little
money. In many ways, the components which make up a laser printer are far more
sophisticated than those in a computer. The RIP (raster image processor) might use an
advanced RISC processor; the engineering which goes into the bearings for the mirrors is
very advanced; and the choice of chemicals for the drum and toner, while often
environmentally unsound, is fascinating. Getting the image from the PC's screen to paper
requires an interesting mix of coding, electronics, optics, mechanics and chemistry.

Communication
A laser printer needs to have all the information about a page in its memory before it can start
printing. How an image is communicated from the PC's memory to a laser printer depends on
the type of printer being used. The crudest arrangement is the transfer of a bitmap image. In
this case there is not much the computer can do to improve on the quality, so sending a dot
for a dot is all it can do.

However, if the system knows more about the image than it can display on the screen there
are better ways to communicate the data. A standard A4 sheet is 8.5in across and 11in deep.
At 300dpi, that is more than eight million dots compared with the eight hundred thousand
pixels on a 1024 by 768 screen. There is obviously scope for a much sharper image on paper
- even more so at 600dpi, where a page can have 33 million dots.

The major way quality can be improved is by sending a page description consisting of
outline/vector information and allowing the printer to make the best possible use of it. If the
printer is told to draw a line from one point to another, it can use the basic geometric principle
that a line has length but not width, and draw that line one dot wide. The same holds for
curves, which can be as fine as the resolution of the printer allows. The idea is that one single
page description may be sent to any suitable device, which would subsequently print it to the
best of its ability - hence the much-touted term, device independent.
Text characters are made up of lines and curves so can be handled in the same way, but a
better solution is to use a pre-described font shape, such as TrueType or Type-1 formats.
Along with precise placement, the page description language (PDL) may take a font shape
and scale it, rotate it, or generally manipulate it to its heart's content. There's the added
advantage of only requiring one file per font as opposed to one file for each point size. Having
predefined outlines for fonts allows the computer to send a tiny amount of information - one
byte per character - and produce text in any of many different font styles and many different
font sizes.

Operation
Where the image to be printed is communicated to it via a page description language, the
printer's first job is to convert the instructions into a bitmap. This is done by the printer's
internal processor, and the result is an image (in memory) of which every dot will be placed
on the paper. Models designated "Windows printers" don't have their own processors, so the
host PC creates the bitmap, writing it directly to the printer's memory.

At the heart of the laser printer is a small rotating drum - the organic photo-conducting
cartridge (OPC) - with a coating that allows it to hold an electrostatic charge. Initially the drum
is given a total positive charge. Subsequently, a laser beam scans across the surface of the
drum, selectively imparting points of negative charge onto the drum's surface that will
ultimately represent the output image. The area of the drum is the same as that of the paper
onto which the image will eventually appear, every point on the drum corresponding to a point
on the sheet of paper. In the meantime, the paper is passed through an electrically charged
wire which deposits a negative charge onto it.

On true laser printers, the selective charging is done by turning the laser on and off as it
scans the rotating drum, using a complex arrangement of spinning mirrors and lenses. The
principle is the same as that of a disco mirror ball. The lights bounce off the ball onto the floor,
track across the floor and disappear as the ball revolves. In a laser printer, the mirror drum
spins incredibly quickly and is synchronised with the laser switching on and off. A typical laser
printer will perform millions of switches, on and off, every second.

Inside the printer, the drum rotates to build one horizontal line at a time. Clearly, this has to be
done very accurately. The smaller the rotation, the higher the resolution down the page - the
step rotation on a modern laser printer is typically 1/600th of an inch, giving a 600dpi vertical
resolution rating. Similarly, the faster the laser beam is switched on and off, the higher the
resolution across the page.

As the drum rotates to present the next area for laser treatment, the written-on area moves
into the laser toner. Toner is very fine black powder, positvely charged so as to cause it to be
attracted to the points of negative charge on the drum surface. Thus, after a full rotation the
drum's surface contains the whole of the required black image.

A sheet of paper now comes into contact with the drum, fed in by a set of rubber rollers. This
charge on the paper is stronger than the negative charge of the electrostatic image, so the
paper magnetically attracts the toner powder. As it completes it's rotation it lifts the toner from
the drum, thereby transferring the image to the paper. Positvely charged areas of the drum
don't attract toner and result in white areas on the paper.

Toner is specially designed to melt very quickly and a fusing system now applies heat and
pressure to the imaged paper in order to adhere the toner permanently. Wax is the ingredient
in the toner which makes it more amenable to the fusion process, while it's the fusing rollers
that cause the paper to emerge from a laser printer warm to the touch.

The final stage is to clean the drum of any remnants of toner, ready for the cycle to start
again.

There are two forms of cleaning, physical and electrical. With the first, the toner which was
not transferred to the paper is mechanically scraped off the drum and the waste toner
collected in a bin. Electrical cleaning takes the form of covering the drum with an even
electrical charge so the laser can write on it again. This is done by an electrical element called
the corona wire. Both the felt pad which cleans the drum and the corona wire need to be
changed regularly.

LED printers
LED (light-emitting diode) page printing - invented by Casio, championed by Oki and also
used by Lexmark - was touted as the next big thing in laser printing in the mid-1990s.
However, five years on - notwithstanding its environmental friendliness - the technology had
yet to make a significant impact in the market.

The technology produces the same results as conventional laser printing and uses the same
fundamental method of applying toner to the paper. A static charge is applied to a photo-
receptive drum and, when the light from the LED hits it, the charge is reversed, creating a
pattern of dots that corresponds to the image that will eventually appear on the page. After
this, electrically charged dry toner is applied, which sticks to the areas of the drum that have
had their charge reversed, and then applied to the paper as it passes past the drum on its
way to the output tray. The difference between the two technologies lies in the method of light
distribution.

LED printers function by means of an array of LEDs built into the cover of the printer - usually
more than 2,500 covering the entire width of the drum - which create an image when shining
down at 90 degrees. A 600dpi LED printer will have 600 LEDs per inch, over the required
page width. The advantage is that a row of LEDs is cheaper to make than a laser and mirror
with lots of moving parts and, consequently, the technology presents a cheaper alternative to
conventional laser printers. The LED system also has the benefit of being compact in relation
to conventional lasers. Colour devices have four rows of LEDs - one each for cyan, magenta,
 yellow and black toners - allowing
colour prints speeds the same as
those for monochrome units.

The principal disadvantage of

LED technology is that the
horizontal resolution is absolutely
fixed, and while some resolution
enhancements can be applied,
none of them will be as good as
the possible resolution upgrades
offered by true lasers. Moreover,
an LED printer's drum performs at
its best in terms of efficiency and
speed when continuous, high-volume printing is called for. In much the same was as a light
bulb will last less long the more it is switched on and off, so an LED printer's drum lifetime is
shortened when used often for small print runs.

LCD printers work on a similar principle, using a liquid crystal panel as a light source in place
of a matrix of LEDs.

Colour lasers
Laser printers are usually monochrome devices, but as with most mono technologies, laser
printing can be adapted to colour. It does this by using cyan, magenta and yellow in
combination to produce the different printable colours. Four passes through the electro-
photographic process are performed, generally placing toners on the page one at a time or
building up the four-colour image on an intermediate transfer surface.

Most modern laser printers have a native resolution of 600 or 1200dpi. Lower resolution
models can often vary the intensity of their laser/LED spots, but deliver coarser multi-level
toner dots resulting in mixed "contone" and halftone printing, rather than continuous tone
output. Rated print speeds vary between 3 and 5ppm in colour and 12 to 14ppm in
monochrome. A key area of development, pioneered by Lexmark's 12ppm LED printer
launched in the autumn of 1998, is to boost colour print speed up to the same level as mono
with simultaneous processing of the four toners and one-pass printing.

The Lexmark Optra Colour 1200N achieves this by having completely separate processes for
each colour. The compactness which results from use of LED arrays instead of the bulky
focusing paraphernalia associated with a laser imaging unit allows the colour engine to be
built with four complete printheads arranged. The CMY and K toner cartridges are laid out in-
line down the paper path and each unit has its own photo-conductive drum. Above each unit
in the printer's lid are four LED arrays - again, one for each colour. Data can be sent to all four
heads simultaneously. The process starts with magenta and passes through cyan and yellow,
with black laid down last.

Apart from their speed, one of the main advantages of colour lasers is the durability of their
output - a function of the chemically inert toners that are fused onto the paper's surface rather
than absorbed into it, as with most inkjets. This allows colour lasers to print well on a variety
of media, without the problems of smudging and fading that beset many inkjets. Furthermore,
by controlling the amount of heat and pressure in the fusing process, output can be given a
user-controllable "finish", from matte through to gloss.

If history is anything to go by, the future for laser and LED colour printing looks bright. Within
four years of the first appearance of colour lasers in 1994 prices approximately halved. With
the market continuing to be stimulated, both by falling prices and improved technology, it
looks inevitable that the laser or LED colour laser will become as commonplace and as
indispensable as the photocopier.
Consumables
Most lasers use cartridge technology based on an organic photoconductive (OPC) drum,
coated in light-sensitive material. During the lifetime of the printer, the drum needs to be
periodically replaced as its surface wears out and print quality deteriorates. The cartridge is
the other big consumable item in a laser printer. Its lifetime depending on the quantity of toner
it contains. When the toner runs out, the cartridge is replaced. Sometimes the toner cartridge
and the OPC drum are housed separately, but in the worst case, the drum is located inside
the cartridge. This means that when the toner runs out, the whole drum containing the OPC
cartridge needs to be replaced, which adds considerably to the running costs of the printer
and produces large amounts of waste.

The situation is even worse with a colour laser - which can actually have up to nine separate
consumables items (four colour toners, an OPC belt or drum, a developer unit, a fuser unit,
fuser oil and a waste toner bottle). Many of these must be fitted when the printer is set up,
and all expire after varying pages counts, depending on the manufacturer and usage. This
high component count is a major reason for the cost and general lack of usability and
manageability of colour lasers, and its reduction is a major focus for laser printer
manufacturers.

Some have tried to improve this situation by making drums more durable and eliminating all
consumables except for toner. Kyocera, for instance, was the first manufacturer to produce a
"cartridge-free" printer which uses an amorphous silicon drum. The drum uses a robust
coating which lasts for the lifetime of the printer, so the only item requiring regular
replacement is the toner and even this comes in a package made from a non-toxic plastic,
designed to be incinerated without releasing harmful gases.

Environmental issues
Unfortunately, the technology used in laser printers makes ozone an inherent by-product of
the printing process. The level of emission depends on where and how a printer is kept. Areas
with large concentrations of dust, small enclosed offices or poorly ventilated rooms can cause
high ozone intensity. Some printers contain filters to limit ozone concentration to levels below
standards which have been established by various bodies - the American Conference of
Governmental Industrial Hygienists, for example. After a certain number of pages have
passed through a printer (usually about 150,000) the filter should be replaced by an
authorised service engineer.

Power-saving abilities are also becoming important in laser printer design. The Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) has stipulated that for a printer to gain Energy Star Compliance, it
must dramatically reduce its power consumption when not being used. The power saver
usually works by warming up the printer only when it is sent a job. If the printer is left idle for a
certain period of time, the printer's power consumption is reduced. Usually this period of time
can be altered by the user and, if preferred, the power saver can be turned off altogether.

Page description languages

Communication between a computer and a printer is very different today to what it was
several years ago. Text was sent in ASCII along with simple character codes instructing bold,
italic, condensed or enlarged type. Fonts consisted of those built into the printer, distinguished
more often than not by a switch selecting serif or sans serif. Graphics were produced line by
line, slowly and streakily. The one big advantage of ASCII-described text is that its
transmission happens quickly and easily: if the electronic document contains a letter A, the
ASCII code for an A is sent and the printer, recognising the code, prints an A. The big
problem was that without careful planning, the printed letter rarely ended up in the same
position it held on the screen. Worse, the entire process was device-dependent, and so
unpredictable, with different printers offering different font shapes and sizes.

PostScript
The situation changed dramatically in 1985 with Adobe's announcement of PostScript Level
1, based on Forth and arguably the first standard multi-platform device-independent page
description language. PostScript describes pages in outline, vector form which is sent to the
display or printing device to be converted into dots (rasterised) at the device's best ability. A
monitor could manage 75dpi, a laser 300dpi and an image-setter up to 2400dpi. Each one
produced more faithful representations of the PostScript description than the last, but all had
the sizes and positions of the shapes in common. Hence device independence and the birth
of the acronym, WYSIWYG - What You See Is What You Get.

PostScript Level 1 appealed to the high-end publishers thanks mostly to the fact that proofs
made on a 300dpi laser would be laid out identically to those on 2400dpi image setters used
to make film. Furthermore, it was possible to send the PostScript instructions from any
platform. All that was required was a driver to turn the document information into PostScript
which could then be understood by any PostScript printer. These features coupled with
graphics snobbery, particularly amongst the Apple Macintosh community, and the fact that
Adobe is the only official licenser, made PostScript-equipped devices ultimately desirable and
consequently expensive.

PostScript Level 2, released a few years ago, offered device-independent colour, data
compression for faster printing, and improved halftone algorithms, memory and resource
management. PostScript Extreme (formerly called Supra) is Adobe's newest variant, aimed at
the top level of high-volume, high-speed printing systems like digital presses.

PCL
Adobe's approach left a gap in the market which Hewlett-Packard strove to fill with its own
device independent-ish page description language based on its Printer Command Language,
PCL, which first appeared in the 1970s.

HP's marketing has been entirely different to Adobe's, opting for the mass cloners rather than
exclusive licensing. This strategy has resulted in a plethora of printers equipped with clones of
PCL costing much less than their PostScript-licensed counterparts. The problem with having
so many PCL clones around is that it's not possible to guarantee 100% identical output on all
printers. This is only a problem when the intention is to use high-resolution bureaux and
where an exact proof is required before sending them the document files. Only PostScript can
offer an absolute guarantee.

PCL was originally made for use with dot-matrix printers and is an escape code rather than a
complete PDL. Its first widespread incarnation, version 3, only supported simple printing
tasks. PCL 4 added better support for graphics and is still used in personal printers. It
requires less processing power than PCL 5, or the latest version PCL 6.

PCL 5, developed for the LaserJet III, offered a similar feature set to PostScript, with
scaleable fonts through the Intellifont system and vector descriptions giving WYSIWYG on the
desktop. PCL 5 also utilised various forms of compression which speeded up printing times
considerably compared to PostScript Level 1. PCL 5e brought bi-directional communication
for status reporting, but no extra print quality enhancements, while PCL 5c added specific
improvements for colour printers.

In 1996 HP announced PCL 6. First implemented on the LaserJet 5, 5N and 5M workgroup

printers, PCL 6 is a complete rewrite. It's a flexible, object-orientated control language, tuned
for fast processing of graphically-rich documents and offers better WYSIWYG facilities. This
makes it ideal for handling Web pages. The more efficient code, combined with faster
processors and dedicated hardware acceleration of the LaserJet 5 printers, results in time-to-
first-page speed increases of up to 32% over the LaserJet 4(M)+ printers they replaced.

GDI
The alternative to laser printers which use languages such as PostScript and PCL are
Windows GDI (Graphical Device Interface) bitmap printers. These use the PC to render
pages before sending them as a bitmap for direct printing, using the printer just as a print
engine. Consequently, there's no need for expensive processors or large amounts of on-
board RAM, making the printer cheaper. However, sending the complete page in compressed
bitmap form takes time, reducing printing speed and increasing the time taken to regain
control of the PC. GDI printers are, therefore, generally confined to the personal printer
market.

Some manufacturers elect to use the Windows Print System, a standard developed by
Microsoft to create a universal architecture for GDI printers. The Windows Printing System
works slightly differently to the pure GDI model. It enables the Windows GDI language to be
converted to a bitmap while printing; the basic idea being to reduce the heavy dependence of
the printer on the PC's processor. Under this system, the image is actually being rendered
during the printing process which greatly reduces the amount of processing power required
from the PC. Other laser printer models use a combination of GDI technology and traditional
architecture, allowing fast printing from Windows as well as support for native DOS
applications.

Adobe PrintGear
An alternative for personal printers is Adobe's PrintGear - a complete hardware/software
system based on an Adobe custom-designed processor designed specifically for the lucrative
small and home office (SoHo) market. Adobe claims that 90% of typical SoHo documents can
be described by a small number of basic objects. They have consequently designed a
dedicated 50MHz image processor to specifically handle these RISC-like tasks, which is
claimed to offer large speed increases over traditional printer processors and be cheaper, too.
A printer equipped with Adobe PrintGear typically features the dedicated processor and a
sophisticated software driver, and offers options including tiling, up to 16 thumbnail pages per
single sheet, two-sided printing, booklet printing and watermarking.