What is a Daisy Wheel Printer?

The print head of a daisy wheel printer is a circular wheel, about 3 inches in diameter with arms or spokes as show in the image bellow. The character shapes are embossed at the outer end of the arms. The shape of printer wheel resembles the petals of a daisy flower and hence, it is named daisy wheel printer.

To print a character, the daisy wheel rotates so that he required character is positioned just in front of the printer ribbon. Now the spoke containing the required character is hit by a hammer and strikes the ribbon leaving an impression on the paper placed behind the ribbon. Movement of all these parts is controlled by microprocessor in the printer. The main advantage of using a daisy wheel printer is that the print quality is high because exact shape of the character hits the ribbon to leave and impression on paper.