| Alphanumeric |
A mixture of letters and numbers - often used in
passwords. |
| Applications programme (program) |
Programmes which carry out a particular task such as
word processing packages, databases and spreadsheets. |
| ASCII |
American Standard Code for Information Interchange.
A standard way of assigning numerical codes to characters and control codes. |
| Background printing |
Printing which takes place whilst allowing the computer
to carry out another task. |
| Bar codes |
Printed codes made from vertical lines of different
thickness used for fast error free data entry. |
| Baud Rate
|
A measure of the speed of data transmission used by
serial communications between printer and computer. When setting up a serial
interface the baud rate settings on the computer and printer must be the same. |
| Bidirectional printing |
Printing in which the print head goes from left to
right only on every other line - on other lines it does from right to left. This
increases the speed of printing as the head prints in both directions. |
| Binary |
The base 2 number system which uses only the two digits
0 and 1. |
| Bit |
A Binary digit - the smallest numeric unit used by
printers and computers. |
| bps |
Bits per second - a measure of the speed of data
communications. |
| Buffer |
An area within the electronics of the printers in which
data, sent from the computer, is stored before it is printed. Also known as printer
memory. |
| Byte |
A group of eight bits, which together make a unit which
can be used to represent a character of number. |
| CMYK |
Colour printing based around cyan, magenta, yellow and
black. |
| Condensed printing |
Printing in which each character is narrower than
normal - useful for fitting wide tables or spreadsheets onto the paper. |
| Configure |
To prepare a piece of equipment or a programme so that
it will work with other software or equipment. |
| cpi |
Characters per inch. |
| cps |
Characters per second |
| Daisy wheel printer |
A type of letter quality printer that uses a round
removable print head made from a spoked disk with a pre-formed character at the end of
each spoke (daisywheel) |
| Default |
Settings that take effect when equipment is turned on. |
| Desktop publishing |
Using a computer to format pages of text and graphics
rather than doing the same job manually with paste and scissors. |
| Dot matrix printer |
A printer which creates characters from patterns of
dots. Usually used to refer to serial impact and ink-jet printers although laser
printers are also dot matrix printers. |
| DOS |
Disk Operating System |
| dpi |
Dots per inch |
| Expansion board |
A type of circuit board which allows the user to fit
extra memory. |
| Impact printer |
A type of printer which forms characters by the impact
of pins or pre-formed characters through a ribbon on to the paper. |
| Ink jet printer |
A type of dot matrix printer which forms characters by
squirting tiny drops of ink onto the paper. |
| Interface |
The electrical connection between the printer and the
computer - usually serial or parallel. |
| Jumper |
A moveable connection between two parts of an
electrical circuit. |
| Justify |
To print text with even left and right margins - each
line of text is the same length. |
| Kb |
Kilobyte. 1024 bytes |
| Laser printer |
A non-impact page printer which uses both laser and
electronic copying technology. Laser light is used to create an image on a
photosensitive drum which then attracts toner powder; the toner is then deposited
onto the paper and fixed in place by heat. |
| LCD |
Liquid Crystal Display. A visual display where
each character is formed from segments which darken when a current is passed through. |
| Line printer |
A printer which prints an entire line of characters as
one unit. |
| Macro |
A method of storing groups of settings that can be
executed with a single key press. |
| Mb |
Megabyte. 1,048,576 bytes or 1024 Kb |
| OCR |
Optical character recognition. Recognising
characters from a scanned document and converting them into a digital form suitable for
use within a computer. |
| Operating system |
The programme which controls the flow of data in a
computer and its peripherals. |
| ppm |
Pages per minute. A measure of how fast a printer
can print each page. |
| Parallel Interface |
A type of interface that allows parallel transmission
of data when a number of bits, usually a byte, are transmitted at the same time. |
| Parity |
A technique for detecting errors in data sent to the
printer via a serial interface. |
| Peripheral |
Any device such as a printer or display connected to a
computer. |
| Pixel |
Smallest displayed unit of a bit-mapped image. |
| RGB |
Red, Green, Blue |
| Serial printer |
A printer that prints one character at a time. |
| Spooling |
Temporary storage of data from a computer before
sending to a printer. |
| WYSIWYG |
What You See Is What You Get.
The ability of some applications programmes to provide an accurate screen
representation of the text that will be printed. |
