Digital printing accounts for the largest number of printed pages in the whole world. It has found different areas of use especially the office and the home. It is subdivided into two categories: The small format is widely used in offices and libraries and even home while the large format is used in many drafting design firms. There are various printing technologies that can be applied in this field and some of them include the following.
Blueprint is one of the printing technologies used in the reproduction of technical drawings, architectural and engineering designs. It was developed in 1842 and has been in use since then. Recent developments have seen the replacement of blueprints with other chemical-based technologies such as black print, white print, and Diazo which have been seen as less expensive and more modern.
Xerography is a type of printing that is usually dry. Today it has found use in many areas such as laser printers, photocopy machines as well as digital presses. The technology has been applied in the animation process to get rid of the hand-inking stage usually involved in the process.
Inkjet printers are mostly used in the reproduction of images by use of different sizes of ink droplets onto a page. This technology is famous because the printers are more silent in their process as compared to others and can print images with finer details which are smoother.
Laser printers are starting to replace many types of printers as it can produce high-quality images on papers. Though it uses the xerographic printing process, it produces the image by passing a laser beam across the photoreceptor of the printer.