Ink Jet

A printer uses inkjet, wax-transfer, or toner technology to make marks on -paper from data files, resulting in the production of first-generation originals where every, one of them can be different, thus allowing the production of a collated document or individual, personalized impressions.

A copier uses inkjet or toner technology to make marks on paper from an original, resulting in a second-generation copy, which, when copying multiple originals in an automatic document handler, can also produce a collated document.

A press uses ink and an image carrier to replicate the same image on paper, over and over again, resulting in a large quantity of the same images. A press may also handle larger sheets, resulting in multiple pages on one large sheet of paper used in a binding/finishing operation.

The 1990s saw a rapid evolution in equipment technology. In 1995 (or the first time, the number of pages printed on printers exceeded pages reproduced on all models of copying machines. This led Hewlett-Packard to coin a new buzzword: mopier—a multiple original printer. A machine that makes, multiple original prints from an original-producing printer instead of an original-copying copier, is a mopier. Since copiers are becoming digital approaches—scanners on the top and printers on the bottom—they are becoming do facto printers.

Printers at the high end, like the Xerox Docutech, are challenging offset duplication at the low end of the black-and-white printing world. Low-end printers are absorbing some of the work of both offset duplicators and mid-level copiers. The copier will become a dead cluck over the next decade.