ac

Alternating current.

ANSI size

An American standard paper size; for example, D or E.

application

A substantial computer program, such as the program you use to create your drawings.

banding

A kind of printing defect. Your printed image suffers from banding if you see narrow horizontal lines across it. This can be caused by one or more faulty printheads, or by the printer advancing the printing material too much or too little between one pass of the printheads and the next.

carriage assembly

The carriage assembly is the assembly that travels across the printer platen. It contains the printheads.

carriage interconnect

The carriage interconnects are the flexible electrical contacts you see when you remove the printheads from the carriage.

Centronics

A standard for the parallel interface between computer and peripheral device.

clipping

Losing part of a drawing at the edges.

CMYKcm

Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, blacK, light cyan, light magenta. The colors of the printer's six inks.

coated paper

Paper coated on one side for inkjet printing.

cycles

The number of times the carriage moves across the printer and then back again to its original position.

default

A value or condition that is assumed if no other value or condition is specified.

device

An external item connected to the computer: printer, tape drive, etc.

dpi

Dots per inch, a measure of print resolution.

driver

The software that controls the communication between a computer and a device.

front panel

The control panel on the right of the printer.

front-panel menus

The structure of options in the front-panel display.

graphics language

A programming language telling a print device how to output graphical data.

grayscale

Shades of gray to represent colors.

high-gloss photo

A glossy, opaque photographic paper.

HP-GL/2

One of Hewlett-Packard's standard graphics languages for plotters and printers. It describes vector data.

I/O

Input/Output: the transmission of data between a computer and a device.

ink cartridge

The part of the HP No.81/83 supplies that stores all the ink used in the printer. Ink cartridges are installed into the printer on the left side.

inked area

The smallest rectangle that contains an entire printed image.

ISO size

An international standard paper size; for example, A1 or A2.

JIS size

A Japanese standard paper size.

LAN

Local Area Network.

long-axis printing

Printing a page when the length is longer than a standard page size.

margin

The space around the page added by the printer to separate one page from another and to avoid printing right to the edge of the printing material.

media

The plural form of the noun “medium” (one medium, two media). Sometimes used in a printing context to mean “printing materials”.

nesting

Placing two or more pages side-by-side on a roll of printing material to avoid waste.

nozzles

Located underneath the printhead. The nozzles direct the ink onto the page.

palette

A set of logical pens defined by color and width for use in HP-GL/2 drawings.

paper axis

The vertical axis in which the paper feed moves, as you look at the printer from the front.

parallel interface

A type of interface between computer and device.

pen

Even though the printer has no physical pens, the lines it draws match the attributes of a pen.

PJL

Printer Job Language. A programming language that controls jobs going to a printer.

platen

The exterior part of the printer on which the printing material rests before going into the printer.

PML

Printer Management Language.

printhead

The printhead is installed into the carriage assembly. It is the part that prints the ink onto the printing material.

printhead cleaner

Part of the HP No.81/83 supplies that ensures that the printhead is ready for printing at all times. It makes sure the printheads do not dry out when they are not in use. There is one printhead cleaner for each printhead.

printing area

The area of the page that can be printed on by the printer. In other words, the page size minus the margins.

printing material

The paper, transparency, or other material on which you print. Printing materials are sometimes referred to as “media” (for instance, in the front panel, where brevity is useful).

PostScript

A standard graphics language, commonly used by graphics and desktop publishing software applications.

queueing

Placing each print received by the device into memory for processing with other prints.

raster

A method of defining an image in terms of dots rather than lines. Raster data typically needs more memory than vector data.

reseating

The action of removing the printhead from the printhead carriage and then inserting it again.

RGB

Red, Green, and Blue. A standard color model.

RIP

Raster Image Processor.

RTL (Raster Transfer Language)

One of Hewlett-Packard's standard graphics languages for plotters and printers. It describes raster data.

scan axis

The horizontal axis in which the print carriage moves, as you look at the printer from the front.

service station

The part of the printer that contains the printhead cleaners.

short menu

The setting in the front panel that allows you not to display parts of the menu structure that you do not want to see.

spindle

The rod that holds a roll of printing material.