near letter quality , NLQ (Abkürzung)

Near Letter Quality (NLQ)

Near Letter Quality mode-informally specified as almost good enough to be used in a business letter-endowed dot-matrix printers with a simulated typewriter-like quality.

It could print in a "near letter quality" mode (with overlapping dots) at 50 cps, and a draft and graphics mode (80 cps).

The ImageWriter printer supported a higher resolution mode where bitmap fonts double the size of the screen resolution were automatically substituted for 'near letter quality' printing.

While some of those dot-matrix printers boast of "near letter quality" printing, the HP Deskjet 500 is capable of boasting "near laser quality" printing.

The Super Graphix Jr added support for 50+ printers and "Near Letter Quality", which was a technique of using multi-pass graphic printing to achieve better looking text printing.

In text mode, the printer was logic-seeking, meaning it would print with the head moving in both directions while it would print only in one direction for graphics and Near Letter Quality.

The quality of the printing depends on the number of dots that are used to create each character; typical values range from 8 rows of 8 dots to the, so called, Near Letter Quality of 24 rows of 17 dots.

Most dot-matrix printers now have a mode called Near Letter Quality, or some variant, in which the printhead goes over every line twice with a slight offset, a procedure that tends to fill in the dots, and others use more pins to bang out smoother-looking letters.

Printer Amstrad launched the Amstrad DMP3000 printer, which was an 80 character dot matrix printer with both IBM and Epson compatibility and boasted NLQ (Near Letter Quality) and could handle both A4 and fanfold paper.