What Is the Laser Printer DPI?

When you read the specifications of your laser printer, one of the items listed is dots per inch (DPI). After reading through the specifications, you may ask: What is the laser printer DPI? Read through this article to find the answer.

What it is

Laser printer DPI is a measure of resolution of the printed image on a page. It is not a measure of the sharpness of the image that you see on your computer monitor or the resolution of image that is scanned and saved to your hard drive. DPI measures the number of dots that your laser printer applies on a linear inch of paper. DPI is usually the same for both a horizontal inch and a vertical inch, but some laser printers do print a different number of dots for horizontal and vertical inches.

What it means

Look at specific examples of laser printer DPI. A 600 DPI laser printer prints 600 dots of toner both horizontally and vertically, resulting in 360,000 (600 x 600) dots per square inch of coverage on a piece of paper. By the same formula, a 600 x 1200 DPI laser printer prints 600 dots of toner horizontally and 1200 dots of toner vertically, resulting in 720,000 (600 x 1200) dots per square inch of coverage.

What it does

Most laser printers have multiple DPI settings. The settings usually range from 300 DPI to 1200 DPI, allowing you to select a lower DPI for draft documents and a higher DPI for final presentation documents. Choosing the lower DPI setting saves you money by increasing the yield of your laser printer toner cartridge.