Computers and Printing: How Digital Printing Was Actually Invented

Every time we describe DTF or litho work as "digital printing," we're using a category of technology that traces back to one engineer at Xerox trying to solve a problem nobody had asked him to solve.

The Accidental Inventor of Laser Printing

Gary Starkweather conceived the idea of a laser printer at Xerox in 1967 and built a working prototype in 1969, against the wishes of managers who saw no need for it. By 1971, his machine, nicknamed "SLOT," was operating at Xerox PARC, capable of around 500 dpi at 60 pages per minute — genuinely remarkable for the era. It took until 1976 for the technology to reach the market commercially, in the IBM 3800, followed by the Xerox 9700 in 1977.

The Machine That Made It Ordinary

Laser printing stayed an expensive, enterprise-only technology for another decade. The HP LaserJet, launched in 1984 at roughly $3,500, finally brought it within reach of ordinary offices and small businesses — the first laser printer genuinely aimed at the mass market rather than corporate print rooms.

1985: The Year Desktop Publishing Was Born

The real revolution came a year later. The Apple LaserWriter, launched in 1985, combined laser printing with Adobe's new PostScript language and Aldus PageMaker software — for the first time, a single desk could hold everything needed to design and print a professional-looking document, without a print shop involved at any stage. "Desktop publishing" wasn't just a marketing phrase; it described something that genuinely hadn't existed the year before.

Inkjet Follows the Same Path

Inkjet printing followed a similar arc: the HP ThinkJet, also launched in 1984, and Canon's early bubble-jet technology brought a second digital printing method to market, cheaper than laser for colour work, and eventually the basis for a huge share of home and small-office printing.

Where This Shows Up in What We Print

Digital printing, the direct descendant of Starkweather's 1969 prototype, is one half of the choice we help customers make every day — see our litho vs digital printing guide for when digital genuinely is the better choice, and when it isn't.

Frequently asked questions

Who invented the laser printer?

Gary Starkweather, an engineer at Xerox, who conceived the idea in 1967 and built a working prototype by 1969, ahead of his own managers' interest in the technology.

When did laser printers reach ordinary businesses?

The HP LaserJet, launched in 1984, was the first laser printer genuinely aimed at the mass market rather than large corporate print rooms.

What was "desktop publishing" and when did it start?

The 1985 combination of the Apple LaserWriter, Adobe PostScript and Aldus PageMaker, which for the first time let a single desk handle professional document design and printing without a print shop.

Before the Laser: The Copier That Started It

Laser printing owes a debt to a patent attorney, not a computer scientist. Chester Carlson, working in a small apartment in Astoria, Queens, made the first xerographic copy with his assistant Otto Kornei on 22 October 1938. More than twenty companies turned the idea down. In 1944 the Battelle Memorial Institute took an interest, and in 1946 it signed a licence with the Haloid Company, which later became Xerox. The Xerox 914, introduced in 1959, is regarded as the first copier recognisable as a modern photocopier. Starkweather's laser idea, described above, took that dry-powder process and put a light source and a computer in front of it.

Inkjet Has an Older Family Tree Than You Might Expect

Inkjet looks like a recent technology, but its earliest ancestor is nineteenth century. In 1867 Lord Kelvin patented the siphon recorder, which traced telegraph signals using a deflected jet of ink. Siemens introduced the first commercial devices in 1951, medical chart recorders. In the late 1970s Canon and HP independently developed thermal inkjet, and by the end of the decade Epson, HP and Canon were working on printers that could reproduce digital images from computers. The two main families are continuous inkjet, where a constant stream of droplets is produced and some are steered away, and drop-on-demand, where a droplet is fired only where needed. Desktop printers generally work on the second principle.

The Phrase "Desktop Publishing" and Who Coined It

The term is attributed to Paul Brainerd, who founded Aldus, and he wanted a phrase that conveyed how small and relatively accessible these products were compared with expensive phototypesetting equipment. The timeline from 1985 is short:

January 1985: Apple releases the LaserWriter for the Macintosh.
July 1985: Aldus releases PageMaker, which became the standard application. Its on-screen pasteboard closely mimicked manual layout.
1986: Ventura Publisher arrives for IBM-compatible PCs, with tagging and style sheets that automated layout. Home versions appear for the Amiga and Atari ST.
1990s onward: QuarkXPress holds an estimated 95% market share in the 1990s, and by 2014 Adobe InDesign has become the most popular application.

The LaserWriter carried Adobe's PostScript technology in its read-only memory as scalable fonts. That let designers proof a file on their own desk and send the same file to a service bureau, where Linotronic imagesetters with resolutions of 600 pixels per inch and above produced high-quality output. This is the origin of the idea that the file you make at home is the one that gets printed professionally.

What Digital Printing Changed in Practice

The central benefit of digital printing is that it skips the plate. Offset printing needs plates made, mounted and adjusted before the first good sheet appears. Digital methods send the file straight to the machine, so short runs make sense. Digital printing also allows variable data, where each impression can differ, such as a name on a mailing or on a garment. The trade-offs are real: per-page costs fall less sharply on very large runs than they do with offset, and commercial digital processes can lose some fine detail because the ink or toner sits on the surface of the material.

So the practical question is not "which is better" but "how many, on what, and how fast does the design change?" For a few hundred identical flyers, offset may suit. For a handful of personalised items, digital is the logical route.

From Desktop File to Printed Garment

Everything that has happened since 1985 reaches your printed clothing in the form of a file. Our DTF printing explained page describes how a design is printed to film and applied to a garment, and DTF compared with DTG sets out the difference between those two digital methods. FabricForge prints by DTF only. The practical consequences of the history above are:

A file that was made as a layered design on a laptop must be flattened and exported to a format the printer can use.
Text is safest converted to outlines or supplied as part of the image, so a missing font does not change your wording.
A vector logo can be scaled to any size without blurring, while a small low-resolution image will look soft when enlarged. As a general rule, supply an image at the size it will print, at around 300 pixels per inch.
Screens show colour by light, whereas printing uses ink, so colours on the proof can look different from a phone. Look at the proof carefully and ask questions if anything looks off.
Transparent backgrounds help. A logo saved with a white box around it can print as a white box if nobody notices.

For a longer list, see our file preparation guide.

A Pre-Flight Checklist

Before you send artwork for a quote:

1. Confirm the final size of the print, such as chest width or banner height.

2. Export a clean copy at that size, and include the original vector file if you have one.

3. Check spelling, dates and phone numbers aloud, from the printed or proof view.

4. List the garment colour and each design colour, and note anything that must match a brand colour.

5. State your deadline when you request a quote and order early. Proofs are shown before printing, so allow time to review them.

6. Keep a copy of everything you sent, in case you need the same file for a later order.

Common Mistakes Inherited from the Desktop Era

Trusting the screen. Brightness settings change how colours look, which is why a printed proof is a more honest check than a monitor.
Using a web image. Images copied from a website are often tiny, because they were made to load quickly.
Stretching a picture. If a file looks soft at full screen, it will look worse printed.
Leaving text near the edge. Keep a safe margin so nothing important is lost in the finishing.
Forgetting the licence. A downloaded font or image may not be free for commercial printing, so check the terms.