Typical form limits for a 24-pin printer are the original plus three non-carbon copies. The smaller diameter causes a lighter impact on the top page, and subsequently even lighter impact on all the remaining pages. The model pictured is a wide-carriage version, but its features are typical of models using either standard or wide- carriage paper.Īlthough 24-pin printheads produce much better-looking text in NLQ mode, their capability to print on multipart forms is limited because of their narrow wires. Components of a typical dot-matrix printer.

Size is misleading, though, because a damaged printhead will render the rest of the printer useless. The narrower pins of the 24-pin printhead produce a reasonably good NLQ printout but hard-to-read results in draft mode.įigure 10.6 shows how small the printhead is in relation to the rest of the printer. Actual print samples illustrating the differences in 24-pin and 9-pin printers. As the printhead moves across the paper, commands from the computer rapidly move the 9, 18, or 24 pins in special sequences to form characters or graphics.įigure 10.5 shows actual print samples from a typical 9-pin printer's draft mode, a typical 24-pin printer's draft mode, and the Near Letter Quality (NLQ) mode of the same 24-pin printer. To create a character, a dot-matrix printer uses a predefined series of columns called a matrix, in which each character is formed. The two major types of dot-matrix printheads areĪ third type of dot-matrix printhead uses 18 pins and basically acts like a faster version of a 9-pin printhead.

The wires are moved by an electromagnet at high speed against the ribbon to form dot patterns that form words, special characters, or graphics. The print mechanism of the dot-matrix printer is almost always an impact mechanism: A printhead containing 9 “24 fine wires (called pins ) arranged in one, two, or three columns is used along with a fabric ribbon, similar to typewriter technology. The dot-matrix printer is so named because it creates the appearance of fully formed characters from dots placed on the page.

Dot matrix printer paper