Digital Copier Technology Improves Office Efficiency

The latest digital copiers improve on traditional photocopiers by generating better-quality copies, speeding up the copying process, and adding ways of dealing with documents in both electronic and paper forms. New digital technology helps make copies more accurate, allow you to program printer output, and gives you inexpensive color at an acceptable speed. If you compare models carefully and make sure the copier you get matches your needs, you can save money while getting better copying performance.

Copier Technology

Older photocopiers created a copy of the document on the copier glass directly on the copier drum. A bright light shining on the document produced a reflected image on an electrically charged drum, neutralizing the charge where the light was brightest. The remaining charge attracted the toner used to make the copy. This technology suffers from the difficulty of distinguishing between shades of light, and it has speed limitations because each copy requires that its own image be transferred to the drum.

Digital copier technology uses sensors to change the reflected light from the document into electric currents that are stored as digital images. The digital image is a more accurate copy of the original document, and it can be used repeatedly to print out copies. The digital copier separates the scanning and printing functions and optimizes both to give better performance overall.

Performance

The new copier technology allows you to produce photographic-quality copies that can be effective in presentations and for promotional material. Scanning is usually high-resolution, and you can get the printer function of the copier at the resolution you need to produce the required quality. High-resolution printers are more expensive, so you have to balance the cost against the quality you want, perhaps getting one photo-quality printer for special jobs and a workhorse for common office duties.

Your employees can save a lot of time if you get a fast printer. Copier speed has two components: If your typical application is frequent, single copies or small volumes, the time taken for the first copy is critical, but if you usually have long copy runs, the number of copies per minute becomes important. Evaluate your business needs, and get the machine that saves you the most time.

Since scanning and printing are separate, digital copiers allow you to integrate the machines into your computer network and document-handling systems. Employees can use the advanced printing features of the copier by using it as a printer for their computers, sending documents directly to the copier to be printed out. At the same time, they can use the scanning function to store digital versions of documents they are copying. Integrating your document handling in this way opens new possibilities for document storage and added efficiency in document handling. The key is to check out all the possibilities and get the digital copier that increases the efficiency of your office the most.