How They Work and Vectorial Bitmap Fonts.

How They Work and Vectorial Bitmap Fonts.
All printers, whether matrix, inkjet, laser or thermal perform essentially the same task - create
a series of dots on the sheet of paper. The points can be scaled in various ways, or different compounds
ink transferred to the paper in various ways, but all the images in both text and graphics are composed of
points. The smaller the dots, the better the end result.
Regardless of the number of points raised in the paper, there must be a common schema to determine the positions that the points are placed; schemes are the most common vector and bitmap fonts. Bitmap fonts come in sizes and different thicknesses. The vector fonts can be any size and have several attributes associated with them.

Each has its advantages and disadvantages, depending on the desired impression.
Bitmap images are usually limited to the text and are a quick way to produce a printed page that uses only
some types of sources. If you have a hard copy graphic image plus text in bitmap, then to create a graph, its
program needs to be able to send to the printer instructions it can understand.
Vector fonts are used with a page description language that manages all the page - even the text -
as graphic images. The text and images used by the program are converted into a series of commands that language
page description of the printer uses to determine where each item will be placed on the page. The languages
page description are typically slower printing and more versatile in the production of different font sizes
with different attributes or special effects, with results far more attractive.

Source: Evolution of Computers