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What to Look For in a New Office Printer

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Your business is as unique as the market and clients you serve. When it comes to office equipment, you need a printer individualized for your exact needs. There are many printers on the market, so determining which one is the right fit for your office can be difficult. We’re here to help you clear through the clutter.

It’s important to understand the role your printer needs to play and the frequency at which your business will use it. Businesses that print thousands of documents per month may value a machine with high printing speed and durability. A printer with high image quality and four ink wells may be more important for companies printing more colorful documents and images. 

Consider these factors before purchasing your next office printer.

Functionality

Most businesses opt for multifunction printers, or systems that can print, copy, scan and fax. Why? Small and medium-sized businesses need a printing solution that reflects themselves: efficient, versatile and reliable.

Budget

Size, imaging, speed and additional features affecting the price of a printer. When determining your budget for a new printer, it’s important to understand that the upfront costs could be compounded by the price of replacing ink. It’s common for inexpensive printers to have costly ink replacement fees. The reason: manufacturers make their money that way.

Leasing printers has become a popular option for businesses. Monthly leasing costs are easier to factor into a budget than the one-time cost of purchasing a multifunction printer. Leasing also allows companies to update their equipment as printer technology advances.

Quality

Your office printer will likely use an inkjet or laser printer. Inkjet printers use ink and are best for low-volume printing, while laser printers use toner and are suited for high-volume printing. Whichever you use, you want professional print quality. Both are measured in dots per inch — or DPI. Laser printers usually have between 600 to 1,200 DPI, while inkjet printer resolutions usually begin at 1,200 DPI.

It’s also worth checking if you can use third-party ink cartridges for your printer and if refilling cartridges is an option. Be aware that using unapproved ink cartridges might void your warranty.

Speed

If your office frequently prints reports or documents with multiple pages, you’ll want to pay attention to the printing speed on your new machine, measured in pages per minute — or PPM. Though printers will have slight variance in PPM for images and text, the measurement will allow you to determine what best fits your business’ needs.

Wireless Access

Most offices have on-the-go employees who want to print from laptops or cellphones. Printers with wireless or Bluetooth access provide more functionality. The feature also allows the machine to access a document management system. Users can use the printer to access electronically stored files without having to send the files through a computer.

 To learn more about print and technology solutions that best fit your organization’s needs, contact us here.

Make the Most of Your Multifunction Printer (MFP)

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You know the basic functions of your multifunction printer (MFP): print, copy, scan, fax. Thanks to today’s technology, all of these functions are melded into a single sleek machine with a relatively small footprint. But if the basic “Big Four” are the only things you’re utilizing your MFP for, you’re missing out on high-powered tools that will make this versatile machine an even more valuable asset in your operations arsenal. Read on to learn about them.

Scan-to-File and Scan-to-Email — After scanning documents at your multifunction printer, do you have to return to your computer to rename, relocate, or email files? With your MFP’s technology, you can designate a file’s target network location or email it to a recipient directly from the MFP interface—no need to chase down documents later.

OCR — Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is a software tool that detects letters, numbers, and punctuation in a document, from typed fields to hand-written notes. With OCR enabled, your scanned documents become easily searchable and accessible for indexing and copy/paste purposes.

Electronic Document Management — OCR becomes particularly powerful when you combine it with electronic document management software, a suite that integrates your multifunction printer with your central server to create a “home base” for all of your digital files and materials. Document management tools can help you link new files to existing records, such as by client name, date, or invoice number.

Applications — That’s right, apps aren’t just for your phone. Your MFP can be linked to your website’s content management system (CMS) or Google account to automatically upload files to those locations. You can also connect to your printer from tablet computers and mobile phones, eliminating the need to email yourself a file just to print it.

Your multifunction printer is so much more than a copier… Or a printer… Or a scanner… Or a fax machine. When fully taken advantage of, it’s a powerful, versatile tool that can help you streamline workflows, extract data, link documents, and communicate across the cloud. Contact Infomax Office Systems to the most out of your MFP or to add one to your fleet.