Printer identification from printed documents

[Spork Schivago]

Hello,

Are laser printers the only printers that use steganography? I have a Brother MFC-L8850CDW LED laser printer. I've read a blue LED light will sometimes show yellow dots that represent the serial number or some other tracking information.

I'm curious if there's any other types of printers that leave tell tale signs of what printer was used to print the document. For example, let's say I have two different documents printed somewheres between 1993 - 1996. I can see on one of them, using a magnifying glass, it looks like every line was printed with little tiny dots. Each and every character seems to be made up of just little tiny dots. They're not perfectly round. They bled a little. The other document though, using the magnifying glass, it looks like it was printed using square lines (like when you draw a vertical line using a drawing program). Each letter with the second document are all made with the square lines. Each letter in the first document seem to be made with little tiny dots.

Do they tell any of you guys what type of printers might have been used to print any of these documents?

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Printer identification from printed documents

One dot on the dotted document seems to measure 1/32 of an inch. So, there'd be 32 dots per inch, from what I can tell. I believe the "dotted" document was printed with a dot-matrix printer.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ample_text.png

It looks very similar to that, just the quality of these disk labels seem to be a bit higher. Any idea what dot-matrix was common in the 90's that could print floppy disk labels?

I can scan images if someone would like to try and take a guess at what printer was used.

[stj]

Re: Printer identification from printed documents

HP *Jet series and Canon where around in the early 90's, i had a canon.
not sure when Epson got into colour inkjets.

i wonder if the yellow dot has an equiv trick on black-only printers.


dont forget the more unusual and expensive stuff btw.
like wax or plastic printers like the tektronix phasor sublimation printers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_ink

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Printer identification from printed documents

HP *Jet series and Canon where around in the early 90's, i had a canon.
not sure when Epson got into colour inkjets.

i wonder if the yellow dot has an equiv trick on black-only printers.


dont forget the more unusual and expensive stuff btw.
like wax or plastic printers like the tektronix phasor sublimation printers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_ink

Okay, Thanks Stj.

Also, I do believe black-only printers had something equivalent. Microprint or something like that.

[mmartell]

Re: Printer identification from printed documents

I'm curious as to why you would like to track down the printer that made 20+ year old labels ?

[stj]

Re: Printer identification from printed documents

i think he wants to id the font used

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Printer identification from printed documents

i think he wants to id the font used

Yes. I'd like to be able to recreate exact duplicates. That's only part of the reason though. It seems impossible to contact the original owner and I'd like to create a website that lists various things about this software set. If I cannot figure it out, it's okay, but I'd like to try. It's been fun and I think I'm finally getting somewheres. So far, I can add to the site, when most of the versions were released. I have all the older shareware versions and the last two registered versions. I know what compiler (for the most part) was used, how the EXEs were packed and I've broke the custom archive file format.

I thought it'd be nice to be able to say the manual was printed on a LaserJet IIID using the Times New Roman font. The picture on the front was created using Paint Brush.

Even if I can't figure that stuff out, that's fine. It'd be nice to be able to at least create exact copies of the manual and disk labels and share them with other people.