First gonna start off saying why producing a hard copy output is important;
Hard copies are great for reproductions. They are also easy to distribute, and can be read by anyone at any time (given that they understand the material), since they do not require assistant for external drives. Important business documents are usually archived in this way to create a tangible record of the material.
Definition of hard copy output;
Hard copy output normally refers to any output which exists in paper form. It was a term used to distinguish it from soft copy (which referred to any electronic form). It referred the apparent permanence of the paper version - i.e. you couldn't change the data on a hard copy format without it being obvious.
