Digital Copier

Choosing between a digital copier or a multifunctional printer is a choice that that often has to be made in a business environment. By necessity, larger offices usually opt for a more balanced deployment consisting of networked printers, multifunction printers and one or two copiers for mass production. In smaller offices, however, a decision has to be made.

Digital copier vs multifunctional printer

The disadvantage of having an all-in-one machine is the lack of redundancy. Having separate fax, scanners, copiers and printers spreads the risk if there is a failure. Another potential problem is contention and concurrency. Contention refers to the priorities placed on jobs when people try and use the machine at the same time. Concurrency refers to the number of things the machine can do at the same time. How a multifunction printer handles these is very important.

The advantage of having an multifunction printer is the additional functionality (such as scanning to a pdf file and emailing it to your desktop), one type of consumable to stock, space savings, one set of maintenance needs and lower training costs. Where there is a need for high volume copying, however, there is no question that a dedicated copier performs best.

Digital vs analog copier

Older copier technology relied on light lens technology to reproduce documents. Modern copiers scan images into memory prior to printing, where they are stored temporarily in a digital format. The main advantage of digital machines is the ability to scan once/print many (as opposed to copying the original over and over again). This means that original documents are handled only once and pages can be collated in memory without sorter bins. Other benefits of digital technology include better quality images, lower noise levels (since scanning happens only once), and longer print runs (because you are not constrained by the size of the sorter bin).

Picking the right copying volume and speed

There are a few guidelines for matching copier volume and speed. Generally faster machines are built to handle higher volumes with less wear and tear:

The role of service in picking a digital copier

Every year there are thousands of digital copiers headed for the scrap heap because of constant jamming and poor image quality. The fact is that the difference between different digital copiers is becoming hard to detect as reliability and quality continue to increase.

If you are considering buying a new digital copier because your old one is breaking down, it may not be the fault of the machine, but rather the people who service it. Your digital copier is unlike any other piece of equipment in your office. A digital copier has many moving parts and uses messy chemicals. Add to this all the new features and color printing, and you have a machine that requires regular, detailed maintenance. Unlike printers, which are modular and can be fixed by replacing an entire assembly, digital copiers have a myriad of small moving parts that run at high speeds. As a result, local support for you digital copier is essential.