The word printer has two different meanings:

A printer is a machine that transfers text and images from a computer onto paper. When you finish writing a school report on your laptop and want a physical copy to turn in, you send it to a printer, which reproduces your work on sheets of paper using ink or toner. Inkjet printers spray tiny droplets of liquid ink onto paper, making them good for printing colorful pictures and photos. Laser printers use heat to fuse powdered toner onto paper, making them faster and better for printing lots of black-and-white documents.

Before computers became common, a printer meant something else entirely: a person whose job was running a printing press to produce books, newspapers, and posters. Benjamin Franklin worked as a printer in colonial America, operating large mechanical presses that pressed inked metal letters onto paper. That older meaning helps explain why we still call the machine that puts words on paper a printer: it's doing the same basic job, just with modern technology instead of a hand-operated press.