It's an impact printer that strikes the paper a line at a time. The inkjet sprays ink from an ink cartridge at very close range to the paper as it rolls by. Color is important for users who need to print pages for presentations or maps and other pages where color is part of the information. Most inexpensive printers provide sufficient resolution for most purposes at 600 dpi. Inexpensive printers print only about 3 to 6 sheets per minute.
Color printing is slower.
More expensive printers are much faster. In the future, however, new printers and computers are likely to use a serial interface, especially Universal Serial Bus or FireWire with a smaller and less cumbersome plug. Printer Languages Printer languages are commands from the computer to the printer to tell the printer how to format the document being printed. These commands manage font size, graphics, compression of data sent to the printer, color, etc. The two most popular printer languages are Postscript and Printer Control Language .