The laser printer is a nonimpact printer that uses the same technology as a copy machine. This printer receives the data from your PC and "burns" the image onto a drum with a laser. The drum rotates into toner or powdered ink. This ink "sticks" to the image on the drum. The drum then rolls onto the paper transferring the "toner image" to the paper. The toner image is then melted onto the paper as it passes over a heated wire.

The quality of print produced by a laser printer is measured in dots per inch or dpi. The more dots per inch a laser can print, the better the print quality. DPI ranges from 240-1200. The most common lasers today produce 300 or 600 dpi which can be considered near letter quality.

The speed of laser printers is measured in pages per minute. Depending upon the printer, this can range from 4-12 pages per minute. They generally use single sheet paper. Some lasers have several removable paper trays for different types or sizes of paper. Lasers can print on regular paper or transparencies.

Laser printers come in two types: color or monochrome. The more common type is monochrome. Color lasers are much more expensive. They also cost more to operate.

All lasers come with built-in RAM. The amount of RAM will determine the total number of fonts and graphics that can be printed on the page. You can usually upgrade your laser with additional RAM.

Most lasers come with built-in fonts. If the software you are running uses these fonts, your hard copy will print faster.

All laser printers support a specific printer description language. This language "tells" the printer how to convert the data from your PC into an image. Two of the more popular are: HP-PCL by Hewlett Packard, the leader in laser printers, and PostScript which can be found on both Apple and IBM/compatible laser printers.

HP-PCL is faster than PostScript. However, PostScript's scalable fonts are better. PostScript is usually more expensive. Most lasers come with one language and can be upgraded to another.