Laser printer in the context of Digital printing

Risograph is a brand of digital duplicators manufactured by the Riso Kagaku Corporation. Released in Japan in 1980, it is designed mainly for high-volume photocopying and printing. It is sometimes called a printer-duplicator as newer models can be used as a network printer as well as a stand-alone duplicator. When printing or copying many duplicates (generally more than 100) of the same content, it is typically far less expensive per page than a conventional photocopier, laser printer, or inkjet printer.

The HP LaserJet 5 is a group of monochrome laser printers produced in the mid-1990s as part of the LaserJet series by Hewlett-Packard (HP). It is the successor to the HP LaserJet 4 series of printers. After the LaserJet 5 series, however, HP introduced a new naming convention for its LaserJet line. While the LaserJet 5L and 5P were replaced with the LaserJet 6L and 6P, there was never a LaserJet 6; the successor to the LaserJet 5/5M/5N/5se line was the LaserJet 4000 series, and the successor to the LaserJet 5si/5siMX/5siNX was the LaserJet 8000 series. In addition, the LaserJet 4V/4MV was not succeeded by a LaserJet 5 series printer, as its successor was the LaserJet 5000 series.

Duplicating machines were the predecessors of modern document-reproduction technology. They have now been replaced by digital duplicators, scanners, laser printers, and photocopiers, but for many years they were the primary means of reproducing documents for limited-run distribution. The duplicator was pioneered by Thomas Edison and David Gestetner, with Gestetner dominating the market up until the late 1990s.

Like the typewriter, these machines were products of the second phase of the Industrial Revolution which started near the end of the 19th century (also called the Second Industrial Revolution). This second phase brought to mass markets technologies like the small electric motors and the products of industrial chemistry without which the duplicating machines would not have been economical. By bringing greatly increased quantities of paperwork to daily life, the duplicating machine and the typewriter gradually changed the forms of the office desk and transformed the nature of office work.

Toner is a powder mixture used in laser printers and photocopiers to form the text and images on paper, in general through a toner cartridge. Mostly granulated plastic, early mixtures added only carbon powder and iron oxide; now there are mixtures that contain polypropylene, fumed silica, and various minerals for triboelectrification. Toner using plant-derived plastic also exists as an alternative to petroleum plastic. Toner particles are melted by the heat of the fuser, and are thus bonded to the paper.

In earlier photocopiers, this low-cost carbon toner was poured by the user from a bottle into a reservoir in the machine. Later copiers, and laser printers from the first 1984 Hewlett-Packard LaserJet, feed directly from a sealed toner cartridge.

A plotter is a machine that produces vector graphics drawings. Plotters draw lines on paper using a pen, or in some applications, use a knife to cut a material like vinyl or leather. In the latter case, they are sometimes known as a cutting plotter.

In the past, plotters were used in applications such as computer-aided design, as they were able to produce line drawings much faster and of a higher quality than contemporary conventional printers. Smaller desktop plotters were often used for business graphics. Printers with graphics capabilities took away some of the market by the early 1980s, and the introduction of laser printers in the mid-1980s largely eliminated the use of plotters from most roles.

Laser scanning is governed by the LiDAR technology and is defined as the controlled deflection of laser beams, visible or invisible. Scanned laser beams are used in some 3-D printers, in rapid prototyping, in machines for material processing, in laser engraving machines, in ophthalmological laser systems for the treatment of presbyopia, in confocal microscopy, in laser printers, in laser shows, in Laser TV, and in barcode scanners.Applications specific to mapping and 3D object reconstruction are known as 3D laser scanner.

LaserJet is a line of laser printers sold by HP Inc. (originally Hewlett-Packard) since 1984. The LaserJet was the world's first commercially successful laser printer. Canon supplies both mechanisms and cartridges for most HP laser printers; some larger A3 models use Samsung print engines.

These printers (and later on all-in-one units, including scanning and faxing) have, as of 2025, a four decade plus history of serving both in offices and at home for personal/at home use.

The HP LaserJet 4 (abbreviated sometimes to LJ4 or HP4) is a group of monochrome laser printers produced in the early to mid-1990s as part of the LaserJet series by Hewlett-Packard (HP). The 4 series has various models, including the standard LaserJet 4 for business use, the 4L for personal use and the 4P for small businesses. Additional models included the 4Si model, created as a heavy-duty business printer, and the 4V model, a B-size printer for desktop publishing and graphic artists. There are also PostScript variants of these machines with the '4M' designation, where M stands for, but is not limited to, usage with an Apple Macintosh. Hewlett-Packard also released an upgraded version of the LaserJet 4/4M known as the 4 Plus ('4+')/4M Plus ('4M+').

The LaserJet 4, especially the 4/4M/4+/4M+ models, have become known for their durability, mainly due to their reliable construction, as well as the printers built-in PCL (and optional PostScript) printer language support which is still used in computers to this day. Hewlett-Packard dominated the laser printing sector during this time in part due to their reliability, relatively affordable pricing, and the spread of LaserJet 4 models from personal use up to heavy business use.

The HP LaserJet 4000 series is Hewlett-Packard's medium-duty monochrome laser printer range and the successor to the HP LaserJet 5 series.

The LaserJet 4000 series, like most of Hewlett-Packard's laser printer series, follow the standard nomenclature for denoting factory-included features.

Near letter-quality (NLQ) printing is a process where dot matrix printers produce high-quality text by using multiple passes to produce higher dot density. The tradeoff for the improved print quality is reduced printing speed. Software can also be used to produce this effect. The term was coined in the 1980s to distinguish NLQ printing from true letter-quality printing, as produced by a printer based on traditional typewriter technology such as a daisy wheel, or by a laser printer.

In 1985, The New York Times described the marketing of printers with the terms "near letter-quality, or N.L.Q." as "just a neat little bit of hype", but acknowledged that they "really show their stuff in the area of fonts, print enhancements and graphics".

Multipart stationery is paper that is blank, or preprinted as a form to be completed, comprising a stack of several copies, either on carbonless paper or plain paper, interleaved with carbon paper. The stationery may be bound into books with tear-out sheets to be filled in manually, continuous stationery (fanfold sheet or roll) for use in suitable computer printers, or as individual stacks, usually crimped together.

The purpose is to produce multiple simultaneous copies of a document produced by handwriting with a pen that applies pressure, such as a ballpoint pen, or with an impact printer. The pressure of writing or impact printing on the carbon or carbonless paper transfers the content to the copy sheets. Depending upon requirements, up to typically four copies of the original can be made, with the quality and readability decreasing towards the bottom copies. This type of stationery can be used whenever multiple copies are required, of quality adequate for the purpose, usually noticeably inferior to, for example, laser-printed output. Typically a company may need a document such as an invoice to give to a customer (original), with a copy for their own accounting department (first copy), and possibly further copies for other purposes. The paper stock used is typically of low weight—thin—to transfer more printing pressure. The different copies can be on paper of different colour to distinguish them, and preprinted content may vary between copies.

Seiko Epson Corporation, commonly known as Epson, is a Japanese multinational electronics company and one of the world's largest manufacturers of printers and information- and imaging-related equipment. Headquartered in Suwa, Nagano, Japan, the company has numerous subsidiaries worldwide and manufactures inkjet, dot matrix, thermal and laser printers for consumer, business and industrial use, scanners, laptop and desktop computers, video projectors, watches, point of sale systems, robots and industrial automation equipment, semiconductor devices, crystal oscillators, sensing systems and other associated electronic components.

The company has developed as one of manufacturing and research and development (formerly known as Seikosha) of the former Seiko Group, a name traditionally known for manufacturing Seiko timepieces. Seiko Epson was one of the major companies in the Seiko Group, but is neither a subsidiary nor an affiliate of Seiko Group Corporation.

A toner cartridge, also called laser toner, is the consumable component of a laser printer. Toner cartridges contain toner powder, a fine, dry mixture of plastic particles, carbon, and black or other coloring agents that make the actual image on the paper. The toner is transferred to paper via an electrostatically charged drum unit, and fused onto the paper by heated rollers during the printing process. It will not stain like ink cartridges, but it can get messy if handled improperly.

Minolta Co., Ltd. (ミノルタ, Minoruta) was a Japanese manufacturer of cameras, lenses, camera accessories, photocopiers, fax machines, and laser printers. Minolta Co., Ltd., which is also known simply as Minolta, was founded in Osaka, Japan, in 1928 as Nichi-Doku Shashinki Shōten (日独写真機商店; meaning Japanese-German camera shop). It made the first integrated autofocus 35 mm SLR camera system. In 1931, the company adopted its final name, an acronym for "Mechanism, Instruments, Optics, and Lenses by Tashima".

In 2003, Minolta merged with Konica to form Konica Minolta. On 19 January 2006, Konica Minolta announced that it was leaving the camera and photo business, and that it would sell a portion of its SLR camera business to Sony as part of its move to pull completely out of the business of selling cameras and photographic film.

Lexmark International, Inc. is an American company that manufactures laser printers and imaging products. Founded in 1991, it is headquartered in Lexington, Kentucky.

Until 2025, the firm was controlled for nine years by a consortium formed by three multinational companies: Ninestar (formerly Apex Technology), PAG Asia Capital, and Legend Capital. On July 1, 2025, it was acquired in full by Xerox for US$1.5 billion.