Talk:Xerography/Archives/2014

Xerography - Genericized trademark?
Is this really a generic term for the printing process, or a term that Xerox invented for the process? It seems very likely that the name for this has really always been electrophotography and that is really the correct name for this article.

I suspect that Xerography was at one time a trademarked term of the Xerox company for this printing process that eventually became genericized, like Escalator. DMahalko 21:47, 23 February 2007 (UTC)


 * "Xerography" was indeed a term invented by the Haloid Company, later known as Xerox Corporation, but it was never a trademark term. It was invented to be the "scientific" or engineering term to describe the printing process.  The trademark term has always been "Xerox"


 * Electrophotography" was an earlier name, invented by Chester Carlson, to describe his process. It fell out of use as the process was refined by Haloid into a commercially viable printing process.    Pzavon 01:27, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Electrophotography is the correct name for this article. The 1940 US patent 2,221,776 (filed 8 Sept 1938) is titled "Electron Photography" but refers to "an electrophotographic device" and "the method of electrophotography". "Xerography" is a later generic term invented to describe Haloid's specific process, which was trademarked Xerox. Their lawyers were competent; a trademark can not be the only term to acurately describe something, that would make it descriptive and invalid. The article might include more early non-Carlson methods and be titled "Electrostatic Photography".69.72.27.202 (talk) 10:29, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

How to deal with so many explanations of the same thing?
The xerography, the photocopying article, and the laser printer article all attempt to describe the same processes three different ways. It would be nice if the technical details could be focused somehow into a single article that all the others refer to, rather than duplicating the same data across so many locations, such as is being done with the LED printer article.

I'm not really sure how this should be done. Generally I think the xerography artcle should be the master discussion of the technical processes, with the laser printer article just referring to the specific details of the exposure step, as is currently being done with the LED printer article. I have no idea how to deal with the photocopying article since it seems to be an almost unnecessary duplication of the xerography article.


 * The photocopying article needs to be both expanded, to include Photostat and stabilization processing, blueprint and diazo printing, and edited to only briefly describe electrophography(xerography) as well as all the modern machines which combine separate (line) cameras and printers, which will have their main articles.69.72.27.202 (talk) 10:53, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

As a somewhat new editor on here, I don't really be the one to be making such large changes, moving the guts of the laser printer technical discussion to the xerography article. But something should be done..

(This talk article has been copied into the talk for xerography, photocopying, laser printer, and LED printer. If you want to comment I suggest putting your response in the talk for xerography.)

DMahalko 00:16, 19 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree, it should be changed. Please, be bold. —Parhamr 19:56, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Xerography is not the generic term in the industry
Xerography is the preferred term at Xerox, not across the industry. The obvious promotion of Xerox products signals this piece as commercial promotion. The generic article should be at Electrophotography with a link back to Xerography as well as laser and LED printing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.170.128.66 (talk) 14:49, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Commercial Promotion
This article was clearly written by someone in Xerox, since it references:

Xerox iGen3 and Xeikon

This is not an acceptable use of a non commercial information tool such as Wikipedia.

View industry usage of "electrophotographic" at American Printer and at the Canon, HP and Kodak Web sites:

http://americanprinter.com/your-turn/Deprez-inkjet-72008/ http://www.canon.com/technology/approach/core_tech/e_photo.html http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Niranjan_Damera-Venkata/files/lep.pdf http://graphics.kodak.com/US/en/Product/Printers_Presses/Digital_Color/Nexpress/default.htm

All of these refer to ostensibly the same technology and none of them use the term "Xerography". For the sake of clarity and commercial neutrality, the term should be changed and references to Xerography, Laster Printing, LED Printing should be redirected to Electrophotography. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Harlandbrown (talk • contribs) 18:24, 28 July 2010 (UTC) Harlandbrown (talk) 18:44, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Merge Electrophotography into Xerography
The electrophotography and xerography articles start with, respectively, "Electrophotography' (or xerography) is a dry photocopying technique..." and "Xerography (or electrophotography) is a dry photocopying technique..."

This strongly suggests to me that the terms are interchangeable. I appreciate the distinction insofar as electrophotography clearly predates xerography but, as is discussed in Carlson's bio, the latter is the term ultimately used to describe the process. Both terms predate the creation of the company Xerox with that name being chosen because they wanted to emphasize that the company was now focusing on the use of xerography.

I suggest that electrophotography be merged into xerography with the introduction of a proper 'history' sub-section into the article since EP is an important historical note. &mdash; RB Ostrum. 16:01, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Further to my above suggestion, I should perhaps mention that I am not stuck on the direction of the merge. I think that my proposal makes the most sense but I have absolutely no problem with electrophotography being the main article if that is the general consensus.  Either way, there is absolutely no good reason to have two separate articles with this degree of redundancy.  &mdash; RB Ostrum. 16:26, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Google Scholar runs 31000:7000 in the ratio "Xerography" citations to "Electrophotography" citations, excluding patents. Redirects are easy. --Wtshymanski (talk) 21:38, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Merged. Electrophotography looked to be a word-for-word copy from a former version of this article, with the terms swapped about. If there was enough content to describe "electrophotography" as a distinct topic or superset of xerography, the redirect can easily be turned back into an article. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:01, 30 April 2012 (UTC)