Inkjet printing is a non-impact method. Ink is emitted from nozzles as they pass over a variety of possible media, and the operation of an inkjet printer is easy to visualise: liquid ink in various colours being squirted at the paper to build up an image.

A print head scans the page in horizontal strips, using a motor assembly to move it from left to right and back, as another motor assembly rolls the paper in vertical steps. A strip of the image is printed, then the paper moves on, ready for the next strip. To speed things up, the print head doesn"t print just a single row of pixels in each pass, but a vertical row of pixels at a time.

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