Specifications

Figure 7 Special papers, such as Canon’s four-layer inkjet photo-quality paper shown here, are essential to
getting the best possible print quality from today’s high-resolution inkjet printers. Match the paper to the
resolution you use for printing and use paper made by the printer maker for best results.
Portable Printers
Portable printers typically use one of four imaging technologies:
■ Thermal wax-transfer
■ Direct thermal output
■ Thermal inkjet
■ Piezo-electric inkjet
Some portable printers from Citizen employ thermal wax-transfer technology, using a thermal-transfer
dot-matrix print head and a choice of a multistrike ribbon for draft work and a one-time-use film rib-
bon for final copies. These thermal-fusion printers are tiny, approximating the size of a foot-long
French bread loaf, making them a good choice for travel. Their extremely compact size and low travel
weight is balanced by extremely slow printing speeds, relatively low resolution (360dpi at a maxi-
mum), limited availability of ribbons, short ribbon life, and the requirement for single-sheet hand-
feeding. Citizen is the main maker of these printers for PC use today, but the technology also is used
by many bar-code printers from a number of vendors.
An alternative thermal approach is taken by the Pentax PocketJet series: direct thermal output at
200dpi–300dpi onto specially prepared single-sheet heavyweight thermal paper. According to Pentax,
its thermal paper printouts are actually about half the cost of ribbon-based, thermal-transfer printers
and are about 50% faster per page. Similar to the Citizen printers, Pentax PocketJets are designed for
portable use and require hand-feeding of multiple-sheet print jobs.
Portable printers made by Canon and Brother represent a miniaturization of normal desktop inkjet
printers and enable resolutions up to 720dpi with an ink cartridge life of hundreds of pages. Canon’s
portable printers use the same thermal inkjet print head technology used by their desktop and multi-
function inkjet printers, whereas Brother uses the piezo-electric technology originally created by
Epson.
Although portable printers offer high print quality similar to their desktop siblings of a similar tech-
nology, they must make compromises in other areas to reach the desired goals of light weight (under
five pounds) and compact size. They normally feature limited paper-handling with small-capacity
paper trays or sometimes manual feed only. They often use only a single ink cartridge, requiring a
swap to print in color. A rechargeable battery might be included, or the printer might use a PC card
(PCMCIA) interface for both power and data transfer. Other typical features include infrared printing
Ink-absorbent layer
Middle reflective
layer
Base paper
Black-coated layer