what is the difference between printer and plotter?

Answer 1

If you understand the difference...

Printer is: raster
Plotter is: vector

Answer 2

"ridiculously_necessary " Gave u the answer in a more meaningful sense. As explained, Plotters are generally used to plot(print) AutoCAD drawings .The paper sizes can vary as one can have custom paper size. ie; A0, A1 sizes etc. A plotter has a special function sort-off in which it cutts the paper to the specified customisation.
In a printer u either have paper sizes : letter-size \ A3 or A4 .

Answer 3

Ussualy the plotter make the line your printed continuesly, without spacing like the printer.
It's depends on the resolution of your printer type, more higher the resolution more smoothly the line but still have spacing between the dot.

Answer 4

A plotter is a vector graphics printing device that connects to a computer.

Pen Plotters print their output by moving a pen across the surface of a piece of paper. This means that plotters are restricted to line art, rather than raster graphics as with other printers. They can draw complex line art, including text, but do so very slowly because of the mechanical movement of the pens. (Pen Plotters are incapable of creating a solid region of color; but can hatch an area by drawing a number of close, regular lines.) When computer memory was very expensive, and processor power was very slow, this was often the fastest way to produce color high-resolution vector-based artwork, or very large drawings efficiently.



A computer printer, or more commonly a printer, produces a hard copy (permanent human-readable text and/or graphics) of documents stored in electronic form, usually on physical print media such as paper transparencies. Many printers are primarily used as computer peripherals, and are attached by a printer cable to a computer which serves as a document source. Other printers, commonly known as network printers, have built-in network interfaces (typically wireless or Ethernet), and can serve as a hardcopy device for any user on the network.

Printers are designed for low-volume, short-turnaround print jobs; requiring virtually no setup time to achieve a hard copy of a given document. However, printers are generally slow devices (30 pages per minute is considered fast; and many consumer printers are far slower than that), and the cost-per-page is relatively high.

In contrast, the printing press (which serves much the same function), is designed and optimized for high-volume print jobs such as newspaper print runs--printing presses are capable of hundreds of pages per minute or more, and have an incremental cost-per-page which is a fraction of that of printers.

The printing press remains the machine of choice for high-volume, professional publishing. However, as printers have improved in quality and performance, many jobs which used to be done by professional print shops are now done by users on local printers; see desktop publishing.

Answer 5

plotters are generally used with CAD programs. the are generally about 4 feet wide and have a selectionof mechanical pens tehy actaulyl draw with. (blueprints, etc)

you already know what a printer is.

here is a good visual of what a plotter does...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Sv7S6AcN1Q

Answer 6

Printer : Whose job is printing books.
Plotter : Who makes secret plan to harm.