In electrophotographic office printing hot roller fusing is favored, whereas non-contact fixing methods are used especially in web printing. The aim of this study was to find out whether there are differences in quality and in the quality-forming characteristics between contact and non-contact fixing, and if so, what the reasons might be. The research was prompted by proliferation of web fed color printers for publishing applications. For the study an IR fixing installation with ceramic plates was built. Unfused print areas were obtained from a desktop color laser printer and fixed with a detached hot roller fuser, the IR radiation device and with a combination of these two. The fixing energy was varied by alteration of the temperature. In addition to basic quality measurements, the micro scale quality was measured with a multigeometrical optical testing device that was developed in our laboratory. The data on adhesion, toner coverage, density, gloss, small scale density and gloss variation, tangential edge profile and point spreading clearly proved that the surfaces are formed differently in the two fusing methods. Variation of energy in fusing also turned out to have a different impact. In hybrid fixing, the first phase determines the final outcome. This article presents a summary of the data and discusses the results from the viewpoint of fixing mechanisms.