What is a Printer?
Printer is a device that prints text, graphics and images on the paper. With regards to quality, graphics, speed there are different types of a printer. The most common types of the printer are Dot matrix, InkJet and Laser printer. In the following sections of this article we will discuss all the common types of printer.
Common Types of Printer
Dye Fusion Thermal
Thermal Dye sublimation or thermal dye transfer is a process that is used by the color printers. A color wax film is moved throughout the page and pigments are heated and deposited on the page.
Inkjet
Inkjet printers use spray and print them on the paper. They produce high quality prints and have better image quality and they are faster as compared to the DOT Matrix printers. Due to low cost, high quality and ease of use, they are most commonly used printers.
Laser Jet
Laser printers use xerographic printing process, which is a same technique as used by the photocopier machine. In the laser printer, the roller is charged with the electricity and the laser light is used to remove that charge from the roller. Laser printer is very fast and they produce high quality and text, graphics and images.
Dot Matrix
In the Dot Matrix, pins are used to strike the ribbon and dots, characters and images are produced when pin strikes the ribbon. The columns of 8, 9 and 24 pins are used in the Dot matrix. Dot matrix printers have horizontally moving head and pins in the vertical position. Dot matrix printers are mostly cheap and they are used for low to medium quality of printing.
LCD/LED
This is a type of printers that uses the liquid and light emitting diodes LED to produce the produce the images on the roller.
Camera Copy
Camera copy printers produce high quality full color output and the laser light is used to write on the film inside the camera. This type of printing process is expensive.
Line Printer
Line printers have horizontal drum that stretch the paper. The drum is made up of 132 thin cylinders and each have a complete set of characters.
Daisy Wheel
Daisy wheel printers work like the typewriters.
What is a Print Server
A print server is a computer or device that is being connected with one more print devices or printers. Print server holds an operating system such as Windows 2000, Windows 2003 and the client computers send print requests to the print server. The print server serves these requests on the first come first serve basis but there are features in the printing software with which the print jobs can be prioritized i.e. you can give preferences to some printing requests. Client computers connect with the print server by using the Microsoft Network Printing Protocol. Dedicated print servers support a large number of the protocols such as TCP/IP, NetBEUI, IPX/SPX, LPD/LPR and NetBIOS.
How to Setup Print Server in Windows 2000/2003
Installation
1. Install the operating system such as Windows 2000 or Windows 2003.
2. Attach printer device with the computer. Normally operating system will automatically detect the printer and if not then you have to manually install the driver of the printer by inserting the CD-ROM. If you don’t have the drivers in the CD then you can download from the vendor’s website or from driverguide.com. You just need to know the model of your printer such as Hewlett Packard LaserJet 2600n, Canon PIXMA™ iP90 InkJet, Lexmark C534N, Canon PIXMA™ MP530 All-In-One Inkjet etc.
3. Install and configure the printer driver in the following steps.
4. Click on Start > Settings > Control Panel > Printer and Faxes.
5. Click on the File Menu > Add printer > Next > Local Printer attached to this computer.
6. Check Automatically Detect and Install My Plug and Play Printer.
7. Click Next.
8. Wizard will automatically detect any attached printer and install the driver for it. If the system doesn’t find the driver then you will be prompted to provide the driver of the printer.
9. After successfully installing the printer driver, you will see a new printer name in the Printer and Faxes inside the control panel.
Server Configurations
1. Right click on the printer name > Properties > Sharing > Share this printer.
2. Provide a shared name for your network printer.
3. This name will be used by all the client computers on the network who want to access this printer.
4. You can also set the color management, priorities, printing preferences, font and other things in the properties tab of the printer.
Client Computer Configuration
If you want to setup the printer at the client computer then you can do this by the following command.
\\computername\printername (printer name is the shared name of the printer)
Second option is the same as you installed the print device on the server i.e. Start > Settings > Control Panel > Printers and Faxes > File Menu > Add Printer.
In this tutorial you have learnt that what is a printer, basic types of the printers and how to setup print server in Windows 2000/2003.