A thin band of material made-up of many layers that is used to carry a printing ink or pigment. Ribbons are made of cloth or plastic, cloth ribbons are either impregnated or coated with an ink or pigment and plastic ribbons are coated with an ink or pigment. The ink or pigment is usually transferred onto a substrate using heat or pressure , heat based printing methods melting melt specific sections of the ribbon onto a substrate in order to form an image , while printing methods use a hammer to strike the ribbon against a substrate and transfer pigment( as in typewriters and dot matrix printers)