The images output on a monitor are often referred to as soft copy. Information output on paper - by a printer - is called hard copy. There are two ways of printing an image on paper, the impact method and the non-impact method. An impact printer uses some sort of physical contact with the paper to produce an image, physically striking paper, ribbon and print hammer together. A non-impact printer places an image on a page without physically touching the page. The four most popular kinds of printers used with microcomputers are dot-matrix, ink-jet, laser, and thermal