Dots per inch

Dots per inch (DPI, or dpi) is a measure of spatial printing or video dot density, in particular the number of individual dots that can be placed in a line within the span of 1 inch (2.54 cm).

Monitors do not have dots, but do have pixels; the closely related concept for monitors and images is pixels per inch or PPI. Many resources, including the Android developer guide, use the terms DPI and PPI interchangeably.

Old CRT type video displays were almost universally rated in dot pitch, which refers to the spacing between the sub-pixel red, green and blue dots which made up the pixels themselves. Monitor manufacturers used the term "dot trio pitch", the measurement of the distance between the centers of adjacent groups of three dots/rectangles/squares on the CRT screen. Monitors commonly used dot pitches of 0.39, 0.33, 0.32, 0.29, 0.27, 0.25, or 0.22 millimetres [mm] (0.0087 in).

LCD monitors have a trio of sub pixels, which are more easily measured.

DPI is used to describe the resolution number of dots per inch in a digital print and the printing resolution of a hard copy print dot gain, which is the increase in the size of the halftone dots during printing. This is caused by the spreading of ink on the surface of the media.

Up to a point, printers with higher DPI produce clearer and more detailed output. A printer does not necessarily have a single DPI measurement; it is dependent on print mode, which is usually influenced by driver settings. The range of DPI supported by a printer is most dependent on the print head technology it uses. A dot matrix printer, for example, applies ink via tiny rods striking an ink ribbon, and has a relatively low resolution, typically in the range of 60 to 90 DPI (420 to 280 µm). An inkjet printer sprays ink through tiny nozzles, and is typically capable of 300–720 DPI. A laser printer applies toner through a controlled electrostatic charge, and may be in the range of 600 to 2,400 DPI.

The DP measurement of a printer often needs to be considerably higher than the pixels per inch (PPI) measurement of a video display in order to produce similar-quality output. This is due to the limited range of colors for each dot typically available on a printer. At each dot position, the simplest type of color printer can either print no dot, or print a dot consisting of a fixed volume of ink in each of four color channels (typically CMYK with cyan, magenta, yellow and black ink) or 2⁴ = 16 colors on laser, wax and most inkjet printers, of which only 14 or 15 (or as few as 8 or 9) may be actually discernible depending on the strength of the black component, the strategy used for overlaying and combining it with the other colors, and whether it is in "color" mode.

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