Editing Dot matrix printing (section)

====PC software====
Initially, third-party printer enhancement software offered a quick fix to the quality issue. General strategies were:
* doublestrike (print each line twice), and
* double-density mode (slow the print head to allow denser and more precise dot placement).

Some newer dot-matrix impact printers could reproduce [[bitmap]] images via "dot-addressable" capability. In 1981, Epson offered a retrofit [[EPROM]] kit called [[Graftrax]] to add this to many early MX series printers. Banners and signs produced with software that used this ability, such as [[Broderbund]]'s [[The Print Shop|Print Shop]], became ubiquitous in offices and schools throughout the 1980s.

As carriage speed increased and dot density increased (from 60 dpi up to 240 dpi), with some adding color printing, additional typefaces allowed the user to vary the text appearance of printouts. Proportional-spaced fonts allowed the printer to imitate the non-uniform character widths of a typesetter, and also darker printouts. 'User-downloadable fonts' gave until the printer was powered off or soft-reset. The user could embed up to two [[#Near Letter Quality (NLQ)|NLQ]] custom typefaces in addition to the printer's built-in (ROM) typefaces.
[[File:Ink cartridge and inside zoom.jpg|thumb|Upper: [[Inmac]] ink [[ribbon]] cartridge with black ink for a dot matrix printer. Lower: Inked and folded, the ribbon is pushed back into the cartridge by the roller mechanism to the left]]