How a Laser Printer Works

Introduction

Laser printers are a type of printer that are widely used in offices and schools.

Main uses

• Offices
• Schools
• Shop POS printers

Advantages

• Very fast printing
• Cheap to print out large volumes
• Due to the fusing process the toner does not run if the paper gets wet.

Disadvantages

• More expensive to buy the printer than inkjet and the toner cartridges are more expensive to buy.

How a laser printer works

Raster image processing

In this step the document to be printed is converted to a page description language ready for previewing on the computer. This is then converted to a raster image specific to the printer’s needs and is then transmitted to the printer’s raster memory, ready for printing.

The raster image is similar to a bitmap file, showing what colour is to be printed at each exact position on the page.

Charging

In this step the

Exposing

Developing

Transferring

Fusing

Cleaning and recharging