Impact Printers and non - Impact Printers:

Impact Printers:

These are printers in which the print-head strikes a ribbon, and include the daisywheel and thimble printer (good quality, but relatively inflexible and slow), and the dot-matrix printers. Dot-matrix printers have traditionally generated comparatively poor quality output, but the 24 pin and 48 pin versions are capable of producing high quality material. Colour options and graphics are available in some of the recent models. 

Non-impact printers:

These are silent in operation and are improving in reliability and quality. These include ink-jet and ink-dot printers (particularly suitable for colour graphics); electrostatic printers (used on facsimile machines, etc.), and thermal transfer printers (suitable for smaller computer systems because of low cost, versatility, and portability). Colour printers are available in this type of printers, which are used in publishing add advertising.