Inkjet printing The principle of inkjet printing was discovered by Canon engineer Ichiro Endo in August 1977.

Inkjet printers operate by propelling variably-sized droplets of liquid or molten material (ink) onto almost any medium. They are the most common type of computer printer for the general consumer due to their low cost, high quality of output, capability of printing in vivid color, and ease of use.

Like most modern technologies, the present-day inkjet has built on the progress made by many earlier versions. Among many contributors, Epson, Hewlett-Packard and Canon can claim a substantial share of the credit for the development of the modern inkjet. In the worldwide consumer market, four manufacturers account for the majority of inkjet printer sales: Canon, Hewlett-Packard, Epson, and Lexmark

Through the 1990s, many fax machines used thermal printing technology. Toward the beginning of the 21st century, however, thermal wax transfer, laser, and inkjet printing technology largely supplanted thermal printing technology in fax machines in order to allow plain-paper printouts.

The Game Boy Printer, made in 1998, was a small thermal printer used to print out certain elements from some Game Boy games.

Thermal printers print faster and more quietly than dot matrix printers. They are also more economical since their only consumable is the paper itself. Even though the paper is more expensive, printers can be rapidly refilled, leading to almost zero downtime. Commercial applications of thermal printers include filling station pumps, information kiosks, point of sale systems, and voucher printers in slot machines.

The first digital press was introduced in 1993.

Digital printing is the reproduction of digital images on a physical surface, such as common or photographic paper or paperboard-cover stock, film, cloth, plastic, vinyl, magnets, labels etc.

It can be differentiated from litho, flexography, gravure or letterpress printing.

Examples of major commercial digital printing systems are the HP Indigo press by Hewlett-Packard, the Océ VarioPrint 6250 from Océ, the InfoPrint system from InfoPrint Solutions Company, a joint venture between IBM and Ricoh and the iGen 3 from Xerox.

Digital printing is widely used in personalized printing with the advent of variable data printing(VDP or VI). One example of this would be personalized childrens books from companies such as Wildfire Publishing who are using technologies from Xerox and XMPie to create "one of" or "single copy" digital books, which are customized with the children's image and name(Print On Demand). Other POD production would be short run books and booklets of varying page quantities, and binding techniques(saddlestitched, perfect bound, GBC, wire-o or plastic spiral), which are most cost effectively produced in digital print shops. Many digital printers today produce sheets of postcards where each card contains different images, different type and each card is also addressed in presorted order in a single pass, which after cutting and finishing, they are ready for mailing. Other typical digital production would be decals, magnets and labels with variable data(images and/or addressing); selfmailers printed and addressed; cross media marketing materials using PURLs and order forms or carbonless sets, using sequencial numbering.

3D (three-dimensional) printing is a category of rapid prototyping technology. A three dimensional object is created by layering and connecting successive cross sections of material. 3D printers are generally faster, more affordable and easier to use than other additive fabrication technologies.

Previous means of producing a prototype typically took man-hours, many tools, and skilled labor. For example, after a new street light luminaire was digitally designed, drawings were sent to skilled craftsmen where the design on paper was painstakingly followed and a three-dimensional prototype was produced in wood by utilizing an entire shop full of expensive wood working machinery and tools. This typically was not a speedy process and costs of the skilled labor were not cheap. Hence the need to develop a faster and cheaper process to produce prototypes. As an answer to this need, rapid prototyping was born. One variation of 3D printing consists of an inkjet printing system.