A printout is a paper copy of something that was created or stored on a computer. When you finish writing a story on a word processor and want to hold it in your hands or share it with someone, you send it to a printer and get a printout. Teachers often ask students to turn in printouts of their essays rather than handwritten versions.

Before computers became common in the 1980s and 1990s, people typed documents on typewriters or wrote them by hand, so there was no distinction between the original and the “printout.” The word became necessary once people started creating documents digitally. A printout might be a map from an online directions service, a photograph from a digital camera, a chart showing scientific data, or a page from a website.

The word usually suggests something printed quickly for practical use rather than professional publishing. You'd call the paper coming from your home or school printer a printout, but you probably wouldn't call a professionally printed book a printout. Scientists examining a printout of their experiment results can mark it up with a pencil, which is harder to do with something on a screen.