10 questions to test your printing knowledge

 

10 questions to test your printing knowledge:

( Answers can be seen the bottom part of this article, but do not peek before answering it by yourself, :)  )

 

According to Gartner, printers, the supplies associated with them and the support required to keep them operating represent 5% of the typical IT budget.  How much do you know about printers and related technology? Take our quiz to find out! Want to study up a little first? See our glossary of printing terms.

 

1. This term is what P.S. stands for on a letter. It's also the name of a programming language that describes the appearance of a printed page.

 

What's the name of this term?

 

 

2. This printing method, which creates raised and colored areas on paper, is often seen in wedding invitations, business cards and letterheads.

 

What kind of process is it?

 

 

3. Which of the following is the oldest form of printing:

a. gravure

b. flexography

c. letterpress

d. screen printing

 

4. In printing, DPI is the standard measure of printed image quality on the paper.

What does DPI stand for?

 

5. Engineers at IBM, Kodak, General Electric and RCA turned the inventor of this copying technology away, saying his idea for using electrostatic charges was useless. 

 

 

6. Printers are generally classified as "impact" and "non-impact." Which category does a laser printer fall into?

 

7. This standard feature of Windows NT, 2000, XP, Vista and Windows 7 allows a group of printers to share the same name and function as if they were one printer.

 

 

8. This is a computer program that sequences print jobs by temporarily storing them in a buffer and sending each one to the printer when the printer is able to process it.

 

 

9. This is a dedicated computer that supports a network printer. 

 

10. This is the name of an industry standard for firmware (built-in software) that allows digital cameras and printers to communicate directly with each other.

 

Below are the answers:

 

1. Answer: Postscript

 

Postscript handles industry-standard, scalable typeface in the Type 1 and TrueType formats. A Postscript file can be identified by its ".ps" suffix.

 

2. Answer: gravure

 YellowPrinting.com

Gravure uses a depressed or sunken surface for the desired image.  The image to be reproduced is etched into the metal plate, sometimes with the use of a laser. 

 

3. Answer: letterpress

 

After the Gutenberg press introduced movable type to the process in the 15th century, letterpress was the predominant printing method for 500 years. In this method, a surface with raised letters is inked and pressed to the surface of the printing substrate to reproduce an image in reverse. The creation of huge rotary presses made industrial printing and newspaper production practical.

 

4. Answer: dots per inch

 

Dots per inch (dpi) is the usual measure of printed image quality on the paper. The average personal computer printer today provides 300 dpi or 600 dpi. Choosing the higher print quality usually reduces the speed of printing each page. YellowPrinting.com

 

5. Answer: xerography

 

Xerography is the dominant method of reproducing images and printing computer data.  It is used in photocopiers, laser printers and fax machines. The term derives from the Greek words xeros, meaning dry and graphos, meaning writing.

 

6. Answer: non-impact

 

Over time, an inkjet printer is about ten times more expensive to operate than a laser printer because ink needs replenishing more frequently. A laser printer uses a non-impact (keys don't strike the paper) photocopier technology. When a document is sent to the printer, a laser beam "draws" the document on a selenium-coated drum using electrical charges. After the drum is charged, it is rolled in toner. The toner adheres to the charged image on the drum and is transferred onto a piece of paper and fused to the paper with heat and pressure. After the document is printed, the electrical charge is removed from the drum and the excess toner is collected.

 

7. Answer: printer pool

 

Printer pooling is used for load balancing. When an end user puts a print job in the queue, the first available printer in the pool will take the job. 

 

8. Answer: spool

 

On personal computers, your print jobs (for example, a Web page you want to print) are spooled to an output file on hard disk if your printer is already printing another file. Storing the print jobs on disk allows multiple printing requests to be queued while the user continues printing.

 

9. Answer: print server

 

A print server's system RAM and hard drive are used to store print jobs in the queue, and print jobs can be reordered, paused, or deleted from the server's keyboard.

 

10. Answer: PictBridge

 

PictBridge allows digital cameras, camcorders and other image-capture devices to connect and print directly to photo printers and other output devices; no PC is required.