Xerox Corporation Ltd. /ˈzɪərɒks/ is an American multinational document management corporation that produces and sells a range of color and black-and-white printers, multifunction systems, photocopiers, digital production printing presses, and related consulting services and supplies.

The laser printer was invented in 1969 by Xerox researcher Gary Starkweather by modifying a Xerox 7000 copier. Xerox management was afraid the product version of Starkweather's invention, which became the 9700, would negatively impact their copier business so the innovation sat in limbo until IBM launched the 3800 laser printer in 1976. The first commercial non-impact printer was the Xerox 1200, introduced in 1973,[27] based on the 3600 copier. It had an optical character generator designed by optical engineer Phil Chen. In 1977, following IBM's laser printer introduction, the Xerox 9700 was introduced. Laser printing eventually became a multi-billion-dollar business for Xerox. In the late 1970s Xerox introduced the "Xerox 350 color slide system" This product allowed the customer to create digital word and graphic 35mm slides. Many of the concepts used in today's "Photo Shop" programs were pioneered with this technology.

In 1980, Xerox announced the forward looking 5700 laser printing system, a much smaller version of their 9700, but with revolutionary touch screen capabilities and multiple media input (word processing disks, IBM magcards, etc.) and printer 'finishing' options. This product was allegedly never intended to make the commercial markets due to its development cost, but rather to show the innovation of Xerox. It did take off with many customers, but was soon replaced with its still smaller and lower cost 2700 Distributed Electronic Printer offering in 1982.