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Traditionally, a printer was a printer and a copier was a copier, and never the twain did meet-until now. With the advent of the new generation of multifunction devices that copy, print, and in some cases even scan and fax, the way work gets done in the office may be about to change forever.
"We're taking the traditional copier and redefining it in people's minds. Its traditional role has been as a standalone device that does one thing; now we've got one device that does many things," said Steve Pearl, marketing manager for Panasonic's copier division.
Networked digital copiers are actually much more like computers than copiers once they are connected to a network, as many businesses are doing, says Mie-Yun Lee, editor of the Business Consumer Guide. Digital copiers allow users to print out copies without ever placing an original on the scanning surface. Documents can be sent over a network to the copier from the user's PC as though it were a printer.
"There's a big productivity gain once you start utilizing the system as a copier and a printer. You've got paper handling and finishing accessories that aren't found on a network printer," said Steve Petix, associate vice president of the Business Products Division of Sharp Electronics.
Working from the desktop
Printing directly to the copier is a step-- saver. Doing so not only bypasses the need for printing out an original and taking it to the copier, it allows the user to specify all aspects of the completed job, right from his or her desktop. You can specify the number of copies, duplex, collate, staple, and choose a wider variety of paper sizes than most laser printers can accommodate, and send the job for output without leaving one's desk until it's time to retrieve the finished job. And because each copy is essentially an original, there's no loss of image quality, as one would experience to some degree even with the best analog photocopier. All of this is done with the high speed and comparatively low cost per copy one normally associates with a photocopier.
Even used as a conventional photocopier, digital models offer some advantages over their analog counterparts. Digital copiers scan each original once, digitize the images, and...