Are you looking for a thermal printer? No problem: www.google.de, thermodrucker, Enter. But—what’s this?! Instead of the expected list of all kinds of printers for your digital photos, you’ll see small and large printers for receipt rolls, adhesive labels, and barcode labels…
But didn’t friends or coworkers talk about their new thermal printer and the great print quality?
The solution is simple: There are various types of thermal printing processes. What they all have in common is that the print result is produced using heat. But that’s where the similarities end. Wikipedia, for example, lists three very different methods for very different purposes: direct thermal printing, thermal transfer printing, and thermal sublimation printing (see https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermodruck).
For photography and digital imaging, only the latter method—dye-sublimation printing—is relevant. So, your friends or colleagues have a dye-sublimation printer. But just as they don’t say “online” but “on,” don’t drive a “convertible” or at least a “car,” but a “cabrio” or “auto,” and say “kilo” instead of “kilogram”—they also say “thermal printer” instead of “dye-sublimation printer.” The reason Google sees it differently (as do many others, by the way) is that “thermal printers” are traditionally the ones used to print receipt rolls, adhesive labels, and barcode labels.
In the online store of NORDFOTO Versand —which, by the way, is one of the most comprehensive for professional dye-sublimation printers —we use both terms in combination and also prefix them with the word “photo printer.” While this may sound a bit clunky, it definitely eliminates any ambiguity.