By: David Sanders
As part of any home office or business, a fax machine is an essential piece of equipment (you know it). When it comes to composing a fax, sometimes we need help in producing a quality cover sheet or in knowing where to type specific information. That’s where fax software comes in. In an effort to make your faxing needs easier, software manufacturers have created various types of programs for making your faxes everything (even you dont need it)from professional to humorous or somewhere in between, .
When purchasing fax software, make sure to carefully read the PC requirements noted on the outside packaging (its a pity, if your computer cant manage hard fax soft). You will need to be familiar with your computer’s configuration so that you can correctly choose a software program that will be compatible with your computer. In order for your computer to accommodate new fax software, it may need to have a specific processor type (i.e., Pentium, Celeron, etc.) and speed, available memory, etc.
If you find the best fax software, insert the cd-rom and install the program. Following that, you will be able to create professional faxes by typing your information into a few preformatted fields.
If you do not have an actual fax machine, but still want to enjoy the convenience of sending and receiving faxes, there are a many computer programs that offer this service exclusively via the internet. One such service is eFax, which provides both a free and paid service to members. For a free service, members are assigned a random fax number for receiving faxes. For a fee, they can also upgrade to a local customized number for their area. In addition, some plans offer the ability to send faxes via a special fax software program offered directly from eFax.
One of the many benefits of signing up with a service similar to eFax is the convenience of having faxes delivered directly into your e-mail box. Without the use of an actual fax machine, this is the only way to receive faxed documents. To the user’s benefit, documents received via e-mail are available for both viewing and/or printing. With the use of an actual fax machine, on the other hand, toner and paper are both used and often wasted if the fax is unwanted.
When it comes to purchasing fax software, you can either buy it on a cd-rom or download it from the network. Whichever you choose, make sure that it will suit all of your business and personal correspondence needs.
Article Directory: http://www.articlecube.com
Sunday, April 1, 2007
Generating Sales Leads Through Fax Broadcasting
By: Christine Harrell
Fax broadcasting, also called fax blasting, is a highly effective form of advertising if executed correctly. Fax broadcasting allows a company to instantly deliver targeted marketing messages to a large audience for an incredibly low price.
Fax broadcasting is a way to get real, physical promotional messages into the hands of your target audience at a cost of about 96% less than sending information through the mail. Blasts of up to 1000 faxes, complete with statistics, can cost as low as $40 with price breaks on larger quantities.
The two most critical factors in ensuring a successful fax broadcasting campaign are the accuracy of the fax mailing list and the quality of the marketing message. Below you’ll find some tips and ideas to maximize the return on investment of your fax broadcasting campaign.
Define the recipient’s specific action
Too often people send out marketing messages hoping that customers will react in a way that benefits the company. Before you even start creating your message, ask yourself: What precise action do I want a recipient to take after reading my message? Will they call a number for more information? Fill out a form and fax back to receive a special free report or bulletin? Or perhaps file the fax in a specific folder in their filing cabinet for future reference?
Include a call to action
Don’t just hope that recipients will infer the action you want them to take. Make sure to include your specific call to action on the page. A call to action might be: “To receive this free special offer, log on to www.website.com within the next 24 hours and order online.” By first determining the specific action your customers will take, then creating your marketing message around it, you are more likely to get the reaction that you are anticipating.
Designing the content
A fax broadcast should be eye catching and encourage the recipient to pick it up and read it after just a glance. Include different sized fonts to accomplish different goals. Use large fonts for brief bursts of relevant yet intriguing text to catch the reader’s attention. Provide a brief follow up to your large text in medium sized font. Add some details in smaller text for those who are interested and want to read more. Give the prospective client enough information to pique their interest then encourage them to seek you out for more information. This not only stops you from crowding your fax broadcast with text, but also engages the prospect.
Fax Broadcast layout and design
While art and design are highly subjective, there are a few basic rules of thumb to stick to. Give the page adequate margins. Think of the white space as a design element to give shape to the other elements on your page, not just blank space to fill up. Choose a professional image or illustration that doesn’t include a lot of dark areas and will look great in black and white. Unless you’re a graphic designer, do a search for professional stock images to find illustrations and photos at low prices. iStockPhoto.com offers more than half a million professional images for just $1 per image.
Test your Message
Before sending your fax out to thousands of people, get the opinions of a few people who aren’t completely familiar with your business. The goal isn’t to find out if they like your promotional flyer, but to test whether or not it delivers the intended message. Make a list of 3-5 very specific questions to ask your test audience such as: “What exactly does this company do?” “What problem does this company’s product or service solve?” or “What action will I take after reading this offer?” Continue testing until you get the desired results and you’ll improve the chances that your target customers will have the same reaction.
Find or Create a Targeted Fax Mailing List
The accuracy and quality of the mailing list for your fax broadcast will ultimately determine if all of your hard work will pay off. To accomplish this you can purchase a fax mailing list, create your own custom list by gathering info from company websites, or hire someone to collect the information for you. A quality fax broadcasting service will offer statistics to let you know how many were delivered successfully so that you can fine tune your mailing list.
Fax broadcasting can be an extremely effective marketing tool, especially for small businesses on a budget that need to make a big impact quickly. While everyone else is concentrating their efforts on email marketing, you can deliver a hardcopy right into the hands of your target customer. Unlike email, someone is sure to look at it and not just instantly toss it away. By designing your fax broadcast effectively, you can easily expand your reach and grow your business.
Article Source: http://www.articlewheel.com
Fax broadcasting, also called fax blasting, is a highly effective form of advertising if executed correctly. Fax broadcasting allows a company to instantly deliver targeted marketing messages to a large audience for an incredibly low price.
Fax broadcasting is a way to get real, physical promotional messages into the hands of your target audience at a cost of about 96% less than sending information through the mail. Blasts of up to 1000 faxes, complete with statistics, can cost as low as $40 with price breaks on larger quantities.
The two most critical factors in ensuring a successful fax broadcasting campaign are the accuracy of the fax mailing list and the quality of the marketing message. Below you’ll find some tips and ideas to maximize the return on investment of your fax broadcasting campaign.
Define the recipient’s specific action
Too often people send out marketing messages hoping that customers will react in a way that benefits the company. Before you even start creating your message, ask yourself: What precise action do I want a recipient to take after reading my message? Will they call a number for more information? Fill out a form and fax back to receive a special free report or bulletin? Or perhaps file the fax in a specific folder in their filing cabinet for future reference?
Include a call to action
Don’t just hope that recipients will infer the action you want them to take. Make sure to include your specific call to action on the page. A call to action might be: “To receive this free special offer, log on to www.website.com within the next 24 hours and order online.” By first determining the specific action your customers will take, then creating your marketing message around it, you are more likely to get the reaction that you are anticipating.
Designing the content
A fax broadcast should be eye catching and encourage the recipient to pick it up and read it after just a glance. Include different sized fonts to accomplish different goals. Use large fonts for brief bursts of relevant yet intriguing text to catch the reader’s attention. Provide a brief follow up to your large text in medium sized font. Add some details in smaller text for those who are interested and want to read more. Give the prospective client enough information to pique their interest then encourage them to seek you out for more information. This not only stops you from crowding your fax broadcast with text, but also engages the prospect.
Fax Broadcast layout and design
While art and design are highly subjective, there are a few basic rules of thumb to stick to. Give the page adequate margins. Think of the white space as a design element to give shape to the other elements on your page, not just blank space to fill up. Choose a professional image or illustration that doesn’t include a lot of dark areas and will look great in black and white. Unless you’re a graphic designer, do a search for professional stock images to find illustrations and photos at low prices. iStockPhoto.com offers more than half a million professional images for just $1 per image.
Test your Message
Before sending your fax out to thousands of people, get the opinions of a few people who aren’t completely familiar with your business. The goal isn’t to find out if they like your promotional flyer, but to test whether or not it delivers the intended message. Make a list of 3-5 very specific questions to ask your test audience such as: “What exactly does this company do?” “What problem does this company’s product or service solve?” or “What action will I take after reading this offer?” Continue testing until you get the desired results and you’ll improve the chances that your target customers will have the same reaction.
Find or Create a Targeted Fax Mailing List
The accuracy and quality of the mailing list for your fax broadcast will ultimately determine if all of your hard work will pay off. To accomplish this you can purchase a fax mailing list, create your own custom list by gathering info from company websites, or hire someone to collect the information for you. A quality fax broadcasting service will offer statistics to let you know how many were delivered successfully so that you can fine tune your mailing list.
Fax broadcasting can be an extremely effective marketing tool, especially for small businesses on a budget that need to make a big impact quickly. While everyone else is concentrating their efforts on email marketing, you can deliver a hardcopy right into the hands of your target customer. Unlike email, someone is sure to look at it and not just instantly toss it away. By designing your fax broadcast effectively, you can easily expand your reach and grow your business.
Article Source: http://www.articlewheel.com
Advantages of Fax Broadcasting
Author: Casey Gollan
Fax broadcasting has several benefits. And with an increasing amount of providers appearing in the industry coupled with new breakthroughs in the technology used - more and more businesses are using the fax to communicate their marketing message, this art
Fax broadcasting has several benefits. And with an increasing amount of providers appearing in the industry coupled with new breakthroughs in the technology used - more and more businesses are using the fax to communicate their marketing message
Fax broadcasting has several benefits. And with an increasing amount of providers appearing in the industry coupled with new breakthroughs in the technology used - more and more businesses are using the fax to communicate their marketing message, this art
Fax broadcasting has several benefits. And with an increasing amount of providers appearing in the industry coupled with new breakthroughs in the technology used - more and more businesses are using the fax to communicate their marketing message
Some of the major plus points about fax broadcasting are –
Potentially Huge Savings for Your Business
Once a company out-sources fax distribution, it can save lot of revenue as now it doesn’t need to waste money in buying paper or stationary to print or envelopes to address, or boxes to carry to the post office (the bare minimum pre-requisites for traditional mails).
The business can also do away with the labor traditionally needed for a mass mailing.
The business doesn’t need to invest huge sums in buying high quality fax machines; instead they can pass on the work to broadcasters who own such high value machines.
With a severe competition amongst fax broadcasting/blasting vendors, companies can at times get send fax for a fee as low as 20 cents per fax. And perhaps much, much lower if you look around.
Improved Fax Quality
As most of the fax machines are capable of receiving and printing readable faxes at 200 dpi, the quality of the fax transmission is largely determined by the sending machine. The vendors who provide services in this area can easily afford such expensive high resolution machines. Thus your fax blast comes through to the receiver in good quality.
The vendors specializing in broadcasting and blasting can help the businesses to broadcast the documents any time of the day (or night). They can also be scheduled days, weeks, or months in advance.
There are vendors who can personalize the documents for each transmission by merging an unlimited number of fields of data onto each document transmission as they fax it out. Thus your messages can be personalized.
Immediate Sales Increase
Fax broadcasting gets results as the message gets noticed instantly, especially if it is broadcasted at the right time of the day when people are most receptive. Schedules can be maintained to broadcast it at the right moment.
Most of the vendors maintain mailing lists of people who are related to a particular business and seeking information from these fax broadcasters helps you in targeting the right audience.
A List Of The Document Types that can be broadcasted:
- Press releases and newsletters
- Product and pricing Updates
- Trade Shows and Event Reminders
- Special Promotions
- Invitations
- Daily Price Lists and Rate Sheets
- Direct Marketing
- Investor Relations Information
- Communication with customer base
- Offsite Emergency Communication
- Inventory information
- Account status
- Interoffice bulletins
- Delivery forms
Reliable Delivery
One can easily track the delivery of each fax online and can know about the ones that bounced back or weren’t delivered.
A customized confirmation can be sent back to the organization about each fax which was successfully delivered and also the reason why certain faxes were not able to reach their destination.
Vendors normally retry each fax up to 3 times if the recipient number was busy.
The turnaround response is quite less and this saves a lot of valuable effort and time.
Archive logs can be maintained to record every incoming and outgoing fax.
Fax blasting/broadcasting is an excellent method for marketing your business. There are many advantages in terms of cost and time savings. The best part is that it is very easy to try and assess for your business.
Internet Fax – Once There Were Fax Machines
The fax technology was invented on 1948, long before cellular phones and emails. Is this old communication technology still alive and kicking? Well, not really. Actually, it is slowly dying. Find out all about the internet fax – the new metamorphosis of the old fax technology in the next few minutes.
Till now, you had to own a special machine – a fax machine, which was only made to send and receive faxes. Now using internet fax or as some call it email faxing, you need no special device for faxes – You can send and receive faxes via your email.
In fact, think of all the things you needed to maintain and pay for to be able to send and receive faxes: A special fax line, paper, ink cartridges etc. Using internet fax, you need nothing but an internet connection.
Another great advantage of using internet fax is its’ transparency. All your business partners will keep sending you faxes to a fax number. In fact, you can choose a toll free number as your virtual fax number.
The biggest advantage of internet faxing is the ability to manage your time more efficiently. I remember my secretary wandering between her office and the fax machine half a dozen times for a single fax receiving. Not any more, now she receives my faxes through the email service wasting no time. She manages to do more tasks now when running around for faxes have stopped.
More than that, you can check if new faxes have been received from anywhere in the world using the internet fax service. You just have to log on to your web mail service and check for new mails. You will save a lot of precious time by responding a lot faster to any new fax you get. Recently, I have begun reading new faxes using my wireless PDA. I can’t believe that a year ago I still used the big fax machine with all its’ disadvantages.
By: Paton Jackson
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
Till now, you had to own a special machine – a fax machine, which was only made to send and receive faxes. Now using internet fax or as some call it email faxing, you need no special device for faxes – You can send and receive faxes via your email.
In fact, think of all the things you needed to maintain and pay for to be able to send and receive faxes: A special fax line, paper, ink cartridges etc. Using internet fax, you need nothing but an internet connection.
Another great advantage of using internet fax is its’ transparency. All your business partners will keep sending you faxes to a fax number. In fact, you can choose a toll free number as your virtual fax number.
The biggest advantage of internet faxing is the ability to manage your time more efficiently. I remember my secretary wandering between her office and the fax machine half a dozen times for a single fax receiving. Not any more, now she receives my faxes through the email service wasting no time. She manages to do more tasks now when running around for faxes have stopped.
More than that, you can check if new faxes have been received from anywhere in the world using the internet fax service. You just have to log on to your web mail service and check for new mails. You will save a lot of precious time by responding a lot faster to any new fax you get. Recently, I have begun reading new faxes using my wireless PDA. I can’t believe that a year ago I still used the big fax machine with all its’ disadvantages.
By: Paton Jackson
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
A Quick Look At Internet Fax Services
Internet fax services are a way of sending fax messages over the web, just like an email, and that without the aid of fax machines.
Here is a quick look at internet fax services. Internet fax services are a way of sending fax messages over the web, just like an email. It does this without the aid of any fax machines. And more importantly, web faxing is cheap, fast and easy to use, and hence is a big money and time saver.
First, let us see how online fax services work. Once a customer subscribes to an internet fax service, the service provider assigns him/her a unique fax number. This is the address to which other people are supposed to send in their faxes. The subscriber can receive fax messages in the form of an email, for which he/she may have to create an email account with the service provider domain. To an extent, this is quite similar to the normal electronic mail.
In order to send a fax message, what the user has to do is to type the message in the text space of the electronic mail, and press the send button, the mail being addressed to the recipient in the form ‘fax number@service provider’s name’. The sent message then goes to the network based server of the service provider, where it is converted into a suitable file format before eventually forwarding it to the recipient’s mail box or fax machine, whichever is applicable. The latter one is called e-fax, which is a new technology and is a bit more costly as it requires some additional software and hardware component installations.
Some of the online fax service providers offer the services for free, while some others charge a definite fee. If it is a free service, the facilities will be limited, and most companies make such a free offer to entice customers to subscribe for a meaty deal later on. But, even if the fax service is for a fee, still the amount is nominal in many counts, especially given the flexibility and scope of this facility. Further, one does not need any costly equipment to use internet faxing. One can manage to send web faxes with a PC and a fast internet connection.
To sum it up, email faxing is an intermediate technology that bridges the gap between traditional fax machines and web-based communication. It eliminates the complexity and operation cost of the bulkier fax machines meanwhile embracing the quickness, flexibility and low cost aspects of web communication. After all, this is what an average customer wants from technology! Good Luck!
By: Oliver Turner -
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
Here is a quick look at internet fax services. Internet fax services are a way of sending fax messages over the web, just like an email. It does this without the aid of any fax machines. And more importantly, web faxing is cheap, fast and easy to use, and hence is a big money and time saver.
First, let us see how online fax services work. Once a customer subscribes to an internet fax service, the service provider assigns him/her a unique fax number. This is the address to which other people are supposed to send in their faxes. The subscriber can receive fax messages in the form of an email, for which he/she may have to create an email account with the service provider domain. To an extent, this is quite similar to the normal electronic mail.
In order to send a fax message, what the user has to do is to type the message in the text space of the electronic mail, and press the send button, the mail being addressed to the recipient in the form ‘fax number@service provider’s name’. The sent message then goes to the network based server of the service provider, where it is converted into a suitable file format before eventually forwarding it to the recipient’s mail box or fax machine, whichever is applicable. The latter one is called e-fax, which is a new technology and is a bit more costly as it requires some additional software and hardware component installations.
Some of the online fax service providers offer the services for free, while some others charge a definite fee. If it is a free service, the facilities will be limited, and most companies make such a free offer to entice customers to subscribe for a meaty deal later on. But, even if the fax service is for a fee, still the amount is nominal in many counts, especially given the flexibility and scope of this facility. Further, one does not need any costly equipment to use internet faxing. One can manage to send web faxes with a PC and a fast internet connection.
To sum it up, email faxing is an intermediate technology that bridges the gap between traditional fax machines and web-based communication. It eliminates the complexity and operation cost of the bulkier fax machines meanwhile embracing the quickness, flexibility and low cost aspects of web communication. After all, this is what an average customer wants from technology! Good Luck!
By: Oliver Turner -
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
‘why Fax Thru E Mail?’
Fax Thru Email provides you with your very own fax number and enables you to send fax messages directly from your computer using our interface or your own email system. On the receiving end, Fax Thru Email processes and routes all incoming fax messages to your dedicated Fax Thru Email email address.
Fax Thru Email™ lets you send and receive faxes anywhere*, anytime, from any computer — all you need is an Internet connection and email. Say goodbye to the hassle and expense of a fax machine and discover a more affordable and flexible alternative.
Your Web-based manager lets you view and manage your Fax Thru Email history, including sent and received faxes, account information, help, and billing details. Plus, it's all done securely — your incoming, outgoing, and personal information remains completely confidential.
Receive faxes from anywhere in the world, send faxes anywhere in North America and Canada, up to 30MB in size, from any email program. Create and customize your own cover sheet. Fax files from your computer or your Online File Folder account. Receive email confirmations so you know your fax went through. View your Fax History to see a record of all incoming and outgoing faxes. Fax to your hotel's fax on the road to print documents.
These are the outgoing file types that Fax Thru Email supports. You can send these file types using Fax Thru Email.
Word Processing - DOC - Microsoft Word Documents, RTF - Rich Text Format, TXT - Plain Text.
Graphics - GIF - CompuServe Graphics Interchange Format, JPG, JPEG - Joint Photography Experts Group, TIFF - Tagged Image File Format.
Other - PDF - Adobe Portable Document Format, HTML - Hypertext Markup Language, XLS - Microsoft Excel Spreadsheets, Incoming fax/s messages are in PDF files.
About Us: 101Domainames.com is a complete premier products and services low cost affordable professional & verified site dedicated to ‘Web Hosting & More’ throughout The USA, Canada, Internationally, & Locally.
With offers to Register Domains, Hosting Plans, Site Building, Design, E–Mail Accounts, Blog, Promotion, 24/7 Customer Support, Guaranteed 99.9% Up Time, Latest Updates, Information, Tips, Technology, Links, and SO Much MORE. Please VISIT > 101Domainames.com.
‘FREE’ to use or print with our link to our site only.
Copyrights © 2006 101domainames.com all rights reserved.
By: 101domainames.com
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
Fax Thru Email™ lets you send and receive faxes anywhere*, anytime, from any computer — all you need is an Internet connection and email. Say goodbye to the hassle and expense of a fax machine and discover a more affordable and flexible alternative.
Your Web-based manager lets you view and manage your Fax Thru Email history, including sent and received faxes, account information, help, and billing details. Plus, it's all done securely — your incoming, outgoing, and personal information remains completely confidential.
Receive faxes from anywhere in the world, send faxes anywhere in North America and Canada, up to 30MB in size, from any email program. Create and customize your own cover sheet. Fax files from your computer or your Online File Folder account. Receive email confirmations so you know your fax went through. View your Fax History to see a record of all incoming and outgoing faxes. Fax to your hotel's fax on the road to print documents.
These are the outgoing file types that Fax Thru Email supports. You can send these file types using Fax Thru Email.
Word Processing - DOC - Microsoft Word Documents, RTF - Rich Text Format, TXT - Plain Text.
Graphics - GIF - CompuServe Graphics Interchange Format, JPG, JPEG - Joint Photography Experts Group, TIFF - Tagged Image File Format.
Other - PDF - Adobe Portable Document Format, HTML - Hypertext Markup Language, XLS - Microsoft Excel Spreadsheets, Incoming fax/s messages are in PDF files.
About Us: 101Domainames.com is a complete premier products and services low cost affordable professional & verified site dedicated to ‘Web Hosting & More’ throughout The USA, Canada, Internationally, & Locally.
With offers to Register Domains, Hosting Plans, Site Building, Design, E–Mail Accounts, Blog, Promotion, 24/7 Customer Support, Guaranteed 99.9% Up Time, Latest Updates, Information, Tips, Technology, Links, and SO Much MORE. Please VISIT > 101Domainames.com.
‘FREE’ to use or print with our link to our site only.
Copyrights © 2006 101domainames.com all rights reserved.
By: 101domainames.com
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
How To Fax Documents Using Windows Xp
Otis Cooper
It would be awesome if we all had our own fax machine.We could fax our resume to that new employer to be reviewed right away.Or we may want to receive that fax from our landlord so we can move into that apartment tomorrow.
Having a fax machine in your home could save you time in completing such tasks as getting a new job.Now what if you can fax documents without having to cough up big bucks to purchase a fax machine.
If you have a computer with Windows XP, internet access, and a printer, you already have a fax machine.One of the optional components in your WinXP software package is the Fax Services Component.This package allow you to send and receive faxes through your computer using regular dial-up internet access.
To use this Fax Service you will need 3.7megabytes of free hard drive space,a dial-up modem and your WinXP Install CD. Since the transmission is sent through your phone line,a cable modem will not work.
The first thing you must do to use the Fax Service is to install it on your PC.This service is not installed when Windows XP was first installed.Perform the following steps to install this software.
Insert your installation CD in your CD or DVD drive and the welcome to Microsoft Windows XP will open.If it doesn't open, open My Computer and double-click the CD or DVD drive.Click install Optional Windows Components.
A menu will open that lists all optional Windows XP components.Now click the box in front of Fax Services and then click next.Watch the installation status bar and once its installed click the finish button and exit.You will need to restart your PC to finish the process.
You can now configure the Fax Console by adding your contact information,the modem you will use, and where you want the system to save a copy of each fax.
To open the application,click on Start,choose All Programs, Accessories,Communications,Fax, the Fax Console, and click next once it opens.You can now type in the Sender information.
The next step in setting up the Console is to enter your TSD or Transmitting Subscriber Identification data.This allow the recipient's computer to identify your computer as the sender of the Fax.The TSD contains your Fax number or your fax number and name.
You're getting closer to finishing the Console.The CSID is next to be added.Your CSID is your Called Subscriber Identification and it can be the same data that's in the TSD.When you receive a Fax,your CSID will appear on the sender's confirmation page.
Now you must choose the routing options for the Faxes you receive.You may want the Faxes saved and printed, or just save.You now choose the printer you want the Fax to be printed on and this will be your default printer.
Click next to reach the last Console Configuration step. Here you verify the data you entered.A Configuration summary will appear for you to verify.Once you are satisfied that all information is correct,click finish.
After setting up the Fax Console and completed the Configuration setup,you're computer is now ready to send and receive Faxes just as any Fax Machine would.The Console pops open automatically and looks similar to the Outlook Express Console.
Now select the device to sending and receiving Faxes.The modem will appear in the drop-down menu.All you need to do is highlight it and check both send and receive.Here is how you receive Faxes using Windows XP.
There are two options to receiving a Fax,Manual and auto answer.Checking the auto mode allows the computer to answer the phone when a Fax is received.To receive a Fax automatically,leave the modem and the computer on and the PC will save received Faxes in the inbox of the Fax Console.
If you have one phone line to use for your fax and voice calls,its good to receive your Faxes manually.You will need to be at your computer to receive a fax.When the phone rings,you will not know if its a voice or fax call until you answer it.
A way around this is to call the sender of the fax and ask them to call ahead to inform you the fax is on its way.Then you can hang up, connect your modem to the phone line and wait.When the call comes through,a dialog box appears and will allow you to receive the Fax.
To send a fax you can use the print option to Fax documents from any Windows application.Open the document from any Windows program such as MSWord ,select the printer, and click okay.
The Fax Wizard will now take you by the hand and help you create a cover page and sending your Fax.After this is done, enter your recipient's data.When entering their Fax number,type it in a format such as +1 (123) 456-7890.
The Fax Console is linked to your Outlook Express Address Book where recipients names can be stored there.Your recipient's name will appear in the Recipient Information Window.
You can now format the cover page by choosing ready made templates or create your own.And now you can schedule when your Fax can be sent.To send it now,just click Now.Or you set a time in advance but be sure to leave the modem and computer on when the time comes.
Click next where you can preview the cover page and Fax preview.If all is well,click finish and the Fax Monitor will appear and show you the status of your Fax.You will see a saved copy of your Fax if you did not send it now.
By following these steps, you can send a Fax from any Windows application.Such application include Microsoft Word, or Microsoft Excel.You can use a scanner with the Fax Service to made it more versatile.Go over to their web site at www.support.microsoft.com to learn how to use a scanner with the Fax Service.
If you're considering using the Fax Service to send faxes, its a great time while rewading this article to grab your WinXP CD,install the software and get going.There will be a lot more help in the software and you'll see just how easy it is to fax with Windows XP.
By: Otis Cooper
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
It would be awesome if we all had our own fax machine.We could fax our resume to that new employer to be reviewed right away.Or we may want to receive that fax from our landlord so we can move into that apartment tomorrow.
Having a fax machine in your home could save you time in completing such tasks as getting a new job.Now what if you can fax documents without having to cough up big bucks to purchase a fax machine.
If you have a computer with Windows XP, internet access, and a printer, you already have a fax machine.One of the optional components in your WinXP software package is the Fax Services Component.This package allow you to send and receive faxes through your computer using regular dial-up internet access.
To use this Fax Service you will need 3.7megabytes of free hard drive space,a dial-up modem and your WinXP Install CD. Since the transmission is sent through your phone line,a cable modem will not work.
The first thing you must do to use the Fax Service is to install it on your PC.This service is not installed when Windows XP was first installed.Perform the following steps to install this software.
Insert your installation CD in your CD or DVD drive and the welcome to Microsoft Windows XP will open.If it doesn't open, open My Computer and double-click the CD or DVD drive.Click install Optional Windows Components.
A menu will open that lists all optional Windows XP components.Now click the box in front of Fax Services and then click next.Watch the installation status bar and once its installed click the finish button and exit.You will need to restart your PC to finish the process.
You can now configure the Fax Console by adding your contact information,the modem you will use, and where you want the system to save a copy of each fax.
To open the application,click on Start,choose All Programs, Accessories,Communications,Fax, the Fax Console, and click next once it opens.You can now type in the Sender information.
The next step in setting up the Console is to enter your TSD or Transmitting Subscriber Identification data.This allow the recipient's computer to identify your computer as the sender of the Fax.The TSD contains your Fax number or your fax number and name.
You're getting closer to finishing the Console.The CSID is next to be added.Your CSID is your Called Subscriber Identification and it can be the same data that's in the TSD.When you receive a Fax,your CSID will appear on the sender's confirmation page.
Now you must choose the routing options for the Faxes you receive.You may want the Faxes saved and printed, or just save.You now choose the printer you want the Fax to be printed on and this will be your default printer.
Click next to reach the last Console Configuration step. Here you verify the data you entered.A Configuration summary will appear for you to verify.Once you are satisfied that all information is correct,click finish.
After setting up the Fax Console and completed the Configuration setup,you're computer is now ready to send and receive Faxes just as any Fax Machine would.The Console pops open automatically and looks similar to the Outlook Express Console.
Now select the device to sending and receiving Faxes.The modem will appear in the drop-down menu.All you need to do is highlight it and check both send and receive.Here is how you receive Faxes using Windows XP.
There are two options to receiving a Fax,Manual and auto answer.Checking the auto mode allows the computer to answer the phone when a Fax is received.To receive a Fax automatically,leave the modem and the computer on and the PC will save received Faxes in the inbox of the Fax Console.
If you have one phone line to use for your fax and voice calls,its good to receive your Faxes manually.You will need to be at your computer to receive a fax.When the phone rings,you will not know if its a voice or fax call until you answer it.
A way around this is to call the sender of the fax and ask them to call ahead to inform you the fax is on its way.Then you can hang up, connect your modem to the phone line and wait.When the call comes through,a dialog box appears and will allow you to receive the Fax.
To send a fax you can use the print option to Fax documents from any Windows application.Open the document from any Windows program such as MSWord ,select the printer, and click okay.
The Fax Wizard will now take you by the hand and help you create a cover page and sending your Fax.After this is done, enter your recipient's data.When entering their Fax number,type it in a format such as +1 (123) 456-7890.
The Fax Console is linked to your Outlook Express Address Book where recipients names can be stored there.Your recipient's name will appear in the Recipient Information Window.
You can now format the cover page by choosing ready made templates or create your own.And now you can schedule when your Fax can be sent.To send it now,just click Now.Or you set a time in advance but be sure to leave the modem and computer on when the time comes.
Click next where you can preview the cover page and Fax preview.If all is well,click finish and the Fax Monitor will appear and show you the status of your Fax.You will see a saved copy of your Fax if you did not send it now.
By following these steps, you can send a Fax from any Windows application.Such application include Microsoft Word, or Microsoft Excel.You can use a scanner with the Fax Service to made it more versatile.Go over to their web site at www.support.microsoft.com to learn how to use a scanner with the Fax Service.
If you're considering using the Fax Service to send faxes, its a great time while rewading this article to grab your WinXP CD,install the software and get going.There will be a lot more help in the software and you'll see just how easy it is to fax with Windows XP.
By: Otis Cooper
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
Fax Broadcasting Explained
Author: Casey Gollan
This Article explains what fax broadcasting is and gives the readers some advantages of using fax broadcasting in their business over more ‘traditional’ methods of marketing communication.
What is Fax Broadcasting?
As the name suggests, fax broadcasting is distributing a fax or list of faxes out to a large group of contacts in one go.
It is also at times referred as ‘fax blasting’ and ‘bulk faxing’.
It is an increasingly popular low-cost way to reach out to thousands of businesses who can either be located in one’s local community or spread across the globe.
Fax broadcasting has some advantages over other communication channels – like letters and, in the past decade, emails. For example, e-mails can get deleted and letters can get thrown out un-opened, whereas but broadcasted faxes are tending to get read. Business owners tend to ‘jump-up’ to read faxes.
Fax broadcasting can also be used as a complementary communication channel to reach people that do not readily respond to emails or direct mail.
Why Go For Fax Broadcasting?
Compared to traditional direct mailing, fax broadcasting, or faxing a personalized document to everyone, is significantly faster, easier and frequently much less expensive. Businesses are not required to print document or buy paper, there’s no envelopes to address, or boxes to carry to the post office.
You can do away with the labour traditionally needed for a mass mailing.
One doesn’t need to tie up his/her own fax machine or waste time fiddling with it.
Faxes can be sent to one or more recipient lists and deliveries can be tracked in real time.
Almost all fax machines used today are capable of receiving and printing readable faxes at 200 dots per inch (dpi), the quality of the fax transmission is largely determined by the sending machine. So sending through customized vendors drastically improves the quality of the document being distributed.
Who Can Gain From Fax Broadcasting?
Several businesses, who offer a service to sell to other businesses, often look at fax marketing to increase their lead generation. This technology helps them to send high priority communications to many people - customers, vendors, and other contacts, at the same time. Following documents are most commonly distributed using this technology –
• Press releases
• Newsletters
• Product Updates
• Pricing Updates
• Event Reminders
• Special Promotions
• Invitations
• Daily Rate Sheets
Market Players in Fax Broadcasting
At the moment there are several Internet Fax providers who offer competitive rates in this trade. Many vendors offer this service, especially to businesses or organizations that have to send a document to a large group of recipients. Such a big pool of vendors helps a business in getting the best competitive rate for this service. Also, with growing interest in this field, there are new innovations being patented every year.
Limitations of Fax Broadcasting
In order to stop spamming, there are several laws in place. You may need to check the laws regarding faxing in your area.
As a general rule, you should have a prior contact or business relationship established before sending information.
In some countries there are significant penalties for unsolicited faxes that advertise goods or services. As per the law, faxes should be sent only when one needs a high priority communications channel, and the information needs to be seen by the intended recipient, even if not initially.
In a Nut-Shell
Traditional method of sending a fax is a time consuming process and that’s why the technology got lagged behind, but with improved facility of sending a customized, high quality fax to over 1,000 destinations in one go, has given a new twist to the tale. More and more companies are out-sourcing this work and every year new players are joining in to intense the already competitive fax broadcasting market.
If you’re in business and you’re selling to customers that have fax machines, try fax broadcasting as one of your marketing methods.
This Article explains what fax broadcasting is and gives the readers some advantages of using fax broadcasting in their business over more ‘traditional’ methods of marketing communication.
What is Fax Broadcasting?
As the name suggests, fax broadcasting is distributing a fax or list of faxes out to a large group of contacts in one go.
It is also at times referred as ‘fax blasting’ and ‘bulk faxing’.
It is an increasingly popular low-cost way to reach out to thousands of businesses who can either be located in one’s local community or spread across the globe.
Fax broadcasting has some advantages over other communication channels – like letters and, in the past decade, emails. For example, e-mails can get deleted and letters can get thrown out un-opened, whereas but broadcasted faxes are tending to get read. Business owners tend to ‘jump-up’ to read faxes.
Fax broadcasting can also be used as a complementary communication channel to reach people that do not readily respond to emails or direct mail.
Why Go For Fax Broadcasting?
Compared to traditional direct mailing, fax broadcasting, or faxing a personalized document to everyone, is significantly faster, easier and frequently much less expensive. Businesses are not required to print document or buy paper, there’s no envelopes to address, or boxes to carry to the post office.
You can do away with the labour traditionally needed for a mass mailing.
One doesn’t need to tie up his/her own fax machine or waste time fiddling with it.
Faxes can be sent to one or more recipient lists and deliveries can be tracked in real time.
Almost all fax machines used today are capable of receiving and printing readable faxes at 200 dots per inch (dpi), the quality of the fax transmission is largely determined by the sending machine. So sending through customized vendors drastically improves the quality of the document being distributed.
Who Can Gain From Fax Broadcasting?
Several businesses, who offer a service to sell to other businesses, often look at fax marketing to increase their lead generation. This technology helps them to send high priority communications to many people - customers, vendors, and other contacts, at the same time. Following documents are most commonly distributed using this technology –
• Press releases
• Newsletters
• Product Updates
• Pricing Updates
• Event Reminders
• Special Promotions
• Invitations
• Daily Rate Sheets
Market Players in Fax Broadcasting
At the moment there are several Internet Fax providers who offer competitive rates in this trade. Many vendors offer this service, especially to businesses or organizations that have to send a document to a large group of recipients. Such a big pool of vendors helps a business in getting the best competitive rate for this service. Also, with growing interest in this field, there are new innovations being patented every year.
Limitations of Fax Broadcasting
In order to stop spamming, there are several laws in place. You may need to check the laws regarding faxing in your area.
As a general rule, you should have a prior contact or business relationship established before sending information.
In some countries there are significant penalties for unsolicited faxes that advertise goods or services. As per the law, faxes should be sent only when one needs a high priority communications channel, and the information needs to be seen by the intended recipient, even if not initially.
In a Nut-Shell
Traditional method of sending a fax is a time consuming process and that’s why the technology got lagged behind, but with improved facility of sending a customized, high quality fax to over 1,000 destinations in one go, has given a new twist to the tale. More and more companies are out-sourcing this work and every year new players are joining in to intense the already competitive fax broadcasting market.
If you’re in business and you’re selling to customers that have fax machines, try fax broadcasting as one of your marketing methods.
Fax Broadcasting
Author: Casey Gollan
Fax broadcasting is a fantastic advertising/marketing strategy to grow your business. Read on to find out how to use fax broadcasting successfully.
Fax Broadcasting. 'Fax broadcast' is one of my favorite marketing strategies. Especially when you're marketing to businesses.
Fax broadcasting is a fantastic advertising/marketing strategy to grow your business. Read on to find out how to use fax broadcasting successfully.
Fax Broadcasting. 'Fax broadcast' is one of my favorite marketing strategies. Especially when you're marketing to businesses.
Fax Broadcasting is sending out a fax to your target market - all at the same time. Hence the word 'broadcast'.
So if you have 10 or 100,00 people on your database, you can use fax broadcasting to send them the same message within seconds of each other.
Fax Broadcasting Benefits
Fax Broadcasting is relatively cheap. Depending on the fax, the fax software, fax service and the fax server you use.
Fax Broadcasting is also very quick to implement and gets results.
If I am doing a flyer or brochure it'll take a week or so to get printed, sorted and then another week to get distributed. Whereas, if I'm broadcasting a fax, all I have to do is have the message completed on my computer. You don't even need to print it out! So I just e-mail the message to the fax service and get them to send it out. Thus you can save around two weeks in time, and a whole lot of money by faxing compared to mailing.
You could broadcast your fax yourself or outsource.
For my fax broadcasting, I outsource my faxing to a fax company.
They take my marketing piece and then broadcast it out to the database that I provide them with.
If you're broadcasting your fax to businesses, try and fax them in the morning or mid afternoon. I've found them to be the optimal times. In fact, in my fax broadcasting marketing package I'll tell you the specific times and days for best results.
Once your fax goes out, you'll find that within seconds of reaching your market, your phone will ring, or your web site will get hits.
Fax broadcasting is a pretty exciting strategy to experience if you have your marketing message right.
However, like anything, fax broadcasting may not work when you do it. So be prepared for a little bit of trial and error to get the results you want from fax broadcasting.
Article Source: http://www.article99.comAll About Internet Fax Services
Are you interested in Internet fax services? The advantages of web fax services are many and subscribing to internet fax services is worth the money you spend on it. This article will help you to know all about internet fax services, advantages of online fax services, and what online fax service providers can offer to their customers.
The main advantage of internet fax services is that online fax technology makes sending and receiving fax easy and fast. One can even use the service even if he/she does not have access to POTS (Plain Old Telephone) as the internet fax services act as an intermediary to handle the fax sending and receiving process. This allows the users to send and receive faxes, especially those marked with “URGENT” anytime they want.
With online fax service you need not have to worry about providing an extra space for you fax machine. Internet fax services can save much of your office space and you can use utilize internet fax services to handle all of your specialized communication needs.
Internet fax services can save your hard earned money to purchase expensive ink cartridges or having the funds to pay the office supplier to send the faxes for you. You can send the fax messages at the convenience of your home or office.
The maximum infrastructure one may require is a computer, a reliable internet connection and an email ID.
Sending internet fax message is quite easy – what a user has to do is to simply type the message in the text space of the electronic mail and press the send button. The fax message will be transfer the network based server of the service provider, where it is converted into a suitable file format before eventually forwarding it to the recipient’s mail box or fax machine, whichever is applicable.
Online fax facility is offered by several companies – most of the companies ask the users to join in any of their monthly subscription packages. There are also several companies which offer free internet fax services. In free online fax services, the user cannot enjoy all the advantages or features offered in a paid internet fax service. That is there may be limitations such as only a specific number of fax messages per month or the user can only receive messages. Therefore, selecting a paid online fax service will be better for the user to enjoy all the benefits of internet fax service.
Web faxing or email faxing is an efficient technology which bridges the gap between traditional fax machines and web based communication. Internet fax services eliminate the operational cost and complexity of using fax machines and provide the users the flexibility and easiness to send and receive fax messages. After all, internet fax service is another communicating tool which makes life easier!!
By: Oliver Turner -
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
The main advantage of internet fax services is that online fax technology makes sending and receiving fax easy and fast. One can even use the service even if he/she does not have access to POTS (Plain Old Telephone) as the internet fax services act as an intermediary to handle the fax sending and receiving process. This allows the users to send and receive faxes, especially those marked with “URGENT” anytime they want.
With online fax service you need not have to worry about providing an extra space for you fax machine. Internet fax services can save much of your office space and you can use utilize internet fax services to handle all of your specialized communication needs.
Internet fax services can save your hard earned money to purchase expensive ink cartridges or having the funds to pay the office supplier to send the faxes for you. You can send the fax messages at the convenience of your home or office.
The maximum infrastructure one may require is a computer, a reliable internet connection and an email ID.
Sending internet fax message is quite easy – what a user has to do is to simply type the message in the text space of the electronic mail and press the send button. The fax message will be transfer the network based server of the service provider, where it is converted into a suitable file format before eventually forwarding it to the recipient’s mail box or fax machine, whichever is applicable.
Online fax facility is offered by several companies – most of the companies ask the users to join in any of their monthly subscription packages. There are also several companies which offer free internet fax services. In free online fax services, the user cannot enjoy all the advantages or features offered in a paid internet fax service. That is there may be limitations such as only a specific number of fax messages per month or the user can only receive messages. Therefore, selecting a paid online fax service will be better for the user to enjoy all the benefits of internet fax service.
Web faxing or email faxing is an efficient technology which bridges the gap between traditional fax machines and web based communication. Internet fax services eliminate the operational cost and complexity of using fax machines and provide the users the flexibility and easiness to send and receive fax messages. After all, internet fax service is another communicating tool which makes life easier!!
By: Oliver Turner -
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
Fax Software
Author: Casey Gollan
Fax software is a fantastic advertising/marketing strategy to grow your business. When done right it can save you both time and money. Read on to find out how to send faxes successfully.
Fax Software allows you to send to received faxes on your computer.
Fax software has been available for a number of years now. And I personally use software in my business.
I have found that using fax software for over 5 years now has been wonderful, so I'll give you a few tips about using it now.
Fax Software Benefits
Because you fax via your computer, you'll save on paper costs. And you're also doing your bit for tree conservation.
Without having to print out each fax (like a traditional fax would) you can review your fax online and make a decision about printing it out, filing it or deleting it.
I use a fax software program and I find the feature of viewing the fax before choosing to print it out very beneficial. It saves a LOT of paper.
However, because you're using software keep in mind that you'll need a scanner or a 'real' fax to send hardcopy faxes.
I have a scanner, and I can in a hardcopy to make it 'soft' then I fax it out with my software.
You'll also need to use your scanner to scan in your signature, as some of the faxes you'll send out with your fax software may require a signature.
Fax software is 'invisible'. So if you have a small office area, or you like to keep your office space clutter free - fax software works like a charm.
Fax software is easily installed into your computer. Then with your modem, either internal or external you can start sending and receiving faxes.
If you only have one phone line, I'd suggest getting another one. I have two phone lines. One for incoming calls and the other line as a dedicated fax line.
If you want to use just one line you can. Your telephone company could set up a 'never fail fax' option. So if you've only got one line and it's busy, the fax will 'pause' until the line is free and then it will download into your fax software.
I find fax software excellent.
Fax software is a fantastic advertising/marketing strategy to grow your business. When done right it can save you both time and money. Read on to find out how to send faxes successfully.
Fax Software allows you to send to received faxes on your computer.
Fax software has been available for a number of years now. And I personally use software in my business.
I have found that using fax software for over 5 years now has been wonderful, so I'll give you a few tips about using it now.
Fax Software Benefits
Because you fax via your computer, you'll save on paper costs. And you're also doing your bit for tree conservation.
Without having to print out each fax (like a traditional fax would) you can review your fax online and make a decision about printing it out, filing it or deleting it.
I use a fax software program and I find the feature of viewing the fax before choosing to print it out very beneficial. It saves a LOT of paper.
However, because you're using software keep in mind that you'll need a scanner or a 'real' fax to send hardcopy faxes.
I have a scanner, and I can in a hardcopy to make it 'soft' then I fax it out with my software.
You'll also need to use your scanner to scan in your signature, as some of the faxes you'll send out with your fax software may require a signature.
Fax software is 'invisible'. So if you have a small office area, or you like to keep your office space clutter free - fax software works like a charm.
Fax software is easily installed into your computer. Then with your modem, either internal or external you can start sending and receiving faxes.
If you only have one phone line, I'd suggest getting another one. I have two phone lines. One for incoming calls and the other line as a dedicated fax line.
If you want to use just one line you can. Your telephone company could set up a 'never fail fax' option. So if you've only got one line and it's busy, the fax will 'pause' until the line is free and then it will download into your fax software.
I find fax software excellent.
How To Choose A Barcode Printer
Barcode Printers nowadays comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes with varying price range. Technically, general purpose laserjet and inkjet printers cannot print barcodes by default. Usually, they require a add-on component or module. An example is Capella Technologies which provides barcode printing functionality to standard HP laserjet printers through an add-on flash card. Such barcode printers are usually limited in the number of symbologies that can be used.
Thermal Barcode printers, on the other hand supports multiple symbologies right out of the box.
There are two ways barcode printers print barcode, the first method is Thermal Transfer and the second method is Direct Thermal. Direct Thermal prints the barcode directly on the label while Thermal Transfer make use of a ribbon and a printhead. The ribbon is heated and the image is etched on by the printhead on a pre-defined area.
Thermal transfer allows you to print barcodes on a wider variety of materials than direct thermal. As such, the type of material you are going to print barcodes on is a crucial factor in determining which barcode printer to purchase.
Larger barcode printers usually have the ability to switch between direct thermal and thermal transfer. One disadvantage of thermal transfer is that the ribbon needs to be changed quite frequently. If you are using the barcode printer in a manufacturing environment, there could be a lot of downtime. A direct thermal printer is faster and is useful particularly where speed is required and you are not printing a lot of barcodes all the time. An example would be in a hospital where each patient warded is given a barcode to identify them.
If you need to print thousand of barcode labels at a time. Look at purchasing one of the thermal printers from symbol or zebra. I found them to be pretty good in terms of speed and functionality. I would advise to get a barcode printer that has a larger print width and a larger print label capacity.
Barcode Printing technology has evolved tremendously over the last few years. Lately, barcode manufacturers have implemented several security features to ensure there is no counterfeit coding. The latest models of barcode printers are capable of printing labels with RFID (Radio Frequency Identification Devices) tags in them. Such security features are mandatory in some highly sensitive industries and help to provide a guarantee of authentication.
By: Ricky Lim
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
Thermal Barcode printers, on the other hand supports multiple symbologies right out of the box.
There are two ways barcode printers print barcode, the first method is Thermal Transfer and the second method is Direct Thermal. Direct Thermal prints the barcode directly on the label while Thermal Transfer make use of a ribbon and a printhead. The ribbon is heated and the image is etched on by the printhead on a pre-defined area.
Thermal transfer allows you to print barcodes on a wider variety of materials than direct thermal. As such, the type of material you are going to print barcodes on is a crucial factor in determining which barcode printer to purchase.
Larger barcode printers usually have the ability to switch between direct thermal and thermal transfer. One disadvantage of thermal transfer is that the ribbon needs to be changed quite frequently. If you are using the barcode printer in a manufacturing environment, there could be a lot of downtime. A direct thermal printer is faster and is useful particularly where speed is required and you are not printing a lot of barcodes all the time. An example would be in a hospital where each patient warded is given a barcode to identify them.
If you need to print thousand of barcode labels at a time. Look at purchasing one of the thermal printers from symbol or zebra. I found them to be pretty good in terms of speed and functionality. I would advise to get a barcode printer that has a larger print width and a larger print label capacity.
Barcode Printing technology has evolved tremendously over the last few years. Lately, barcode manufacturers have implemented several security features to ensure there is no counterfeit coding. The latest models of barcode printers are capable of printing labels with RFID (Radio Frequency Identification Devices) tags in them. Such security features are mandatory in some highly sensitive industries and help to provide a guarantee of authentication.
By: Ricky Lim
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
Optical Character Recognition - What’s It All About?
Optical character recognition, or ‘OCR’, is a technology that allows digital images of typed or handwritten text to be transferred into an editable text document. For example, if you hooked up a scanner to your computer and used the scanner to scan a handwritten essay into a digital photo, you could take that digital photo and use optical character recognition software to “see” and “grab” the text from the digital photo so you can edit that text on your computer in a program like Microsoft Word, Notepad, or TextEdit.
For the more “geeky” readers, optical character recognition takes the picture of text and translates the text into Unicode or ASCII. From wikipedia.org, “unicode is an industry standard designed to allow text and symbols from all of the writing systems of the world to be consistently represented and manipulated by computers”. Also from wikipedia.org, “ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) is a character encoding based on the English alphabet.” Basically, optical character recognition technologies outputs text that is recognized by computers.
Optical character recognition technologies can be found used in different software solutions, but software is considered a low budget way to use optical character recognition technology. In more complex optical character recognition systems, it is usual that a combination of both hardware and software will be used.
While optical character recognition technology has become increasingly popular and research for it has intensified, the rates of text recognition are variable. For handwritten optical character recognition, the rate of recognition is 80% to 90% with clean handwriting. For cursive text, the rate of recognition is quite lower because of the lack of information contained in the cursive characters.
Like I said, optical character recognition is becoming increasingly popular. It is becoming popular in areas of work that require massive amounts of printed documents to be sorted. One example of these areas is in the legal profession. Optical character recognition greatly reduces the time required for these printed documents to be sorted. The time reduced can amount to days! The United States Post Office has also been using optical character recognition since 1965.
For a normal computer user who wants to be able to edit scanned documents of text, there are many different types of software solutions available. Different software solutions will allow both scanned handwritten and typed text to be translated, while some may only allow scanned typed text to be translated. There are a couple optical character recognition programs that are available for free.
Some free ones are:
- SimpleOCR: http://www.simpleocr.com
- OCRAD: http://www.gnu.org/software/ocrad/ocrad.html
If you are looking to spend money on an optical character recognition program, expect to cough up some cash. These OCR programs are in the area of $100. The following is a list of some of these programs:
- http://www.abbyy.com
- http://www.nuance.com
- http://www.irislink.com
Check out the websites to see what software solution will work best for you. Many of these programs allow you to try them for a short trial period. It is definitely worth to check out as it allows you to further explore optical character recognition technology.
By: John McQueen
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
For the more “geeky” readers, optical character recognition takes the picture of text and translates the text into Unicode or ASCII. From wikipedia.org, “unicode is an industry standard designed to allow text and symbols from all of the writing systems of the world to be consistently represented and manipulated by computers”. Also from wikipedia.org, “ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) is a character encoding based on the English alphabet.” Basically, optical character recognition technologies outputs text that is recognized by computers.
Optical character recognition technologies can be found used in different software solutions, but software is considered a low budget way to use optical character recognition technology. In more complex optical character recognition systems, it is usual that a combination of both hardware and software will be used.
While optical character recognition technology has become increasingly popular and research for it has intensified, the rates of text recognition are variable. For handwritten optical character recognition, the rate of recognition is 80% to 90% with clean handwriting. For cursive text, the rate of recognition is quite lower because of the lack of information contained in the cursive characters.
Like I said, optical character recognition is becoming increasingly popular. It is becoming popular in areas of work that require massive amounts of printed documents to be sorted. One example of these areas is in the legal profession. Optical character recognition greatly reduces the time required for these printed documents to be sorted. The time reduced can amount to days! The United States Post Office has also been using optical character recognition since 1965.
For a normal computer user who wants to be able to edit scanned documents of text, there are many different types of software solutions available. Different software solutions will allow both scanned handwritten and typed text to be translated, while some may only allow scanned typed text to be translated. There are a couple optical character recognition programs that are available for free.
Some free ones are:
- SimpleOCR: http://www.simpleocr.com
- OCRAD: http://www.gnu.org/software/ocrad/ocrad.html
If you are looking to spend money on an optical character recognition program, expect to cough up some cash. These OCR programs are in the area of $100. The following is a list of some of these programs:
- http://www.abbyy.com
- http://www.nuance.com
- http://www.irislink.com
Check out the websites to see what software solution will work best for you. Many of these programs allow you to try them for a short trial period. It is definitely worth to check out as it allows you to further explore optical character recognition technology.
By: John McQueen
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
Digitize Your Small Business
By: Stacey Moore
There is a problem confronting business professionals in the office today. Valuable information that is written, printed, copied and faxed-driving much of your productivity-is kept in piles on your desk, stuffed in folders in your file cabinets or hidden away in locations around the office. Your paper-based information resources are not being managed in a way that can improve productivity. This inevitably results in increased operating costs, diminished productivity and, in some cases, lost opportunity.
The problem is not the paper-it is how to integrate this information into your electronic environment. How to actually do this is continuing to change into a highly mobile, connected digital workspace where all the information business professionals need is at their fingertips. However, until improved methods are brought forth that convert the paper on the desk, or in folders in the filing cabinet, into information that is instantly accessible, organizations will be forced to continue working in two separate worlds-paper and digital.
There is a plethora of document-imaging solutions available today that target these issues, but most are costly, complex and require special software and training to operate. However, technology has changed the face of scanning in recent years to where thousands of small and mid-sized businesses previously left out of the document-scanning revolution can now benefit from this technology. Currently, low-cost, sheet-fed scanners such as the Fujitsu ScanSnap are now available that eliminate these complexities, are fast and are small enough to place next to you on the desk.
The Fujitsu ScanSnap is roughly the size of a letter-size sheet of paper and offers a 50-page Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) and optical resolution of 600 pixels per inch. The scanner focuses on scanning to PDF, with JPG as a second choice, and Adobe Acrobat 7.0 is included for instant PDF conversion. Simply place the paper in the ADF, hit the big green button and seconds later you have a full-duplexed PDF copy of your original document. It also comes with a ScanSnap-specific version of ABBYY Software's top-notch FineReader Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software (Readiris Pro v11 from I.R.I.S. for the Mac version), which will convert the words on the scanned pages to editable documents such as Microsoft Word.
The ScanSnap also functions as a business-card scanner, with the ability to run business cards through its ADF quickly, recognize the text and send the results to a variety of programs, including Microsoft Outlook and GoldMine. It doesn't discriminate when it comes to operating systems either. The ScanSnap S500 for PCs and the ScanSnap S500M for the Mac both come with automatic blank-page detection and deletion, automatic color detection and automatic deskew and image rotation.
Most offices store too much paper and that can affect productivity. Documents can become more valuable to your small business if you've had them digitized and archieved with a sheet-fed scanner.
For more information, visit http://us.fujitsu.com/fcpa.
There is a problem confronting business professionals in the office today. Valuable information that is written, printed, copied and faxed-driving much of your productivity-is kept in piles on your desk, stuffed in folders in your file cabinets or hidden away in locations around the office. Your paper-based information resources are not being managed in a way that can improve productivity. This inevitably results in increased operating costs, diminished productivity and, in some cases, lost opportunity.
The problem is not the paper-it is how to integrate this information into your electronic environment. How to actually do this is continuing to change into a highly mobile, connected digital workspace where all the information business professionals need is at their fingertips. However, until improved methods are brought forth that convert the paper on the desk, or in folders in the filing cabinet, into information that is instantly accessible, organizations will be forced to continue working in two separate worlds-paper and digital.
There is a plethora of document-imaging solutions available today that target these issues, but most are costly, complex and require special software and training to operate. However, technology has changed the face of scanning in recent years to where thousands of small and mid-sized businesses previously left out of the document-scanning revolution can now benefit from this technology. Currently, low-cost, sheet-fed scanners such as the Fujitsu ScanSnap are now available that eliminate these complexities, are fast and are small enough to place next to you on the desk.
The Fujitsu ScanSnap is roughly the size of a letter-size sheet of paper and offers a 50-page Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) and optical resolution of 600 pixels per inch. The scanner focuses on scanning to PDF, with JPG as a second choice, and Adobe Acrobat 7.0 is included for instant PDF conversion. Simply place the paper in the ADF, hit the big green button and seconds later you have a full-duplexed PDF copy of your original document. It also comes with a ScanSnap-specific version of ABBYY Software's top-notch FineReader Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software (Readiris Pro v11 from I.R.I.S. for the Mac version), which will convert the words on the scanned pages to editable documents such as Microsoft Word.
The ScanSnap also functions as a business-card scanner, with the ability to run business cards through its ADF quickly, recognize the text and send the results to a variety of programs, including Microsoft Outlook and GoldMine. It doesn't discriminate when it comes to operating systems either. The ScanSnap S500 for PCs and the ScanSnap S500M for the Mac both come with automatic blank-page detection and deletion, automatic color detection and automatic deskew and image rotation.
Most offices store too much paper and that can affect productivity. Documents can become more valuable to your small business if you've had them digitized and archieved with a sheet-fed scanner.
For more information, visit http://us.fujitsu.com/fcpa.
Tips For Scanning Paper Photo Prints
Scanning paper photo prints is rare but sometimes you will need to do just that. Scanning is a process in which paper photo prints are converted to digital photo files. There are a few things to know and a few tips to follow when scanning such paper photo prints. This article lists the important ones.
There are three types of photo prints that you can scan:
Paper photo prints: The most common, usually in sizes of 4X6 and 5X7. Photo paper prints are easy to scan. You can scan them yourself at home using a home scanner. Home scanners that can do the job are relatively cheap and usually cost less than $100. You can mail them or hand them in person to a professional service that will scan them for you. After they are scanned the service will mail you back the originals and a DVD with the digital photo files – alternatively the service can provide you with online access to the digital photos (examples are services such as www.digmypics.com, www.digitalpickle.com, www.britepix.com and many more) There are advantages and disadvantages to home scanning or professional scanning services. If you have a small number of photos scanning at home is easier. If you have plenty of photos using a service can be easier but it can be more expensive. If you decide to scan at home you should pay attention to:
Resolution: the resolution of a scan is the number of dots per inch that the scanner can produce. Home scanners can scan at 1200 DPI or more. The scanner can be set to scan at different resolutions. The higher the resolution the slower the scan is and the bigger the digital photo file is. For most paper photo prints scanning at 300 to 600 DPI is enough. You can experiment scanning at higher resolutions.
Speed: Speed is not important if you only have a few photo prints to scan. If you have hundreds or more photo prints speed becomes important. For faster scanning you should scan at the lowest resolution that is satisfactory - for most paper prints 300 to 600 DPI is enough.. Different scanners scan at different speeds measured by the number of scans per minute. When buying a scanner pay attention to its speed.
Photo prints feeding: The type of photo feeding mechanism is not important if you are only scanning a few photo prints. It is important if you have many photo prints to scan. In such cases make sure that the scanner you buy supports fast and easy loading of photo prints. High-end scanners can load a stack of photo prints and automatically fetch and scan them. You should use such scanners if you are scanning hundreds or more photo prints.
Negatives: Negatives are also known as film. Negatives are developed film usually in 35mm format from which paper photo prints are printed. Scanning negatives is harder than scanning paper photo prints. In most cases it is easier and also cheaper to use a professional negative scanning service (example are services such as www.slidescanning.com, www.myspecialphotos.com, www.pixmonix.com and many more). Standard home flat scanners are not good enough for negative scanning and you will need to spend money and purchase a special film/slides scanner. Negatives are small high resolution sources and thus require scanning at higher DPI than paper prints. In most cases 2400DPI or higher should be used. Negatives also need to be lit in a special way when they are scanned. Flat home paper scanners project light on the paper from the front and then scan by capturing the reflected light. Negatives on the other hand need to be lit from the back and scanning is done by capturing the light the goes through
the negative.
Slides: very similar to negatives used for projecting photos on large screens. The same considerations and tips for negatives scanning also apply to slides.
By: ziv haparnas
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
There are three types of photo prints that you can scan:
Paper photo prints: The most common, usually in sizes of 4X6 and 5X7. Photo paper prints are easy to scan. You can scan them yourself at home using a home scanner. Home scanners that can do the job are relatively cheap and usually cost less than $100. You can mail them or hand them in person to a professional service that will scan them for you. After they are scanned the service will mail you back the originals and a DVD with the digital photo files – alternatively the service can provide you with online access to the digital photos (examples are services such as www.digmypics.com, www.digitalpickle.com, www.britepix.com and many more) There are advantages and disadvantages to home scanning or professional scanning services. If you have a small number of photos scanning at home is easier. If you have plenty of photos using a service can be easier but it can be more expensive. If you decide to scan at home you should pay attention to:
Resolution: the resolution of a scan is the number of dots per inch that the scanner can produce. Home scanners can scan at 1200 DPI or more. The scanner can be set to scan at different resolutions. The higher the resolution the slower the scan is and the bigger the digital photo file is. For most paper photo prints scanning at 300 to 600 DPI is enough. You can experiment scanning at higher resolutions.
Speed: Speed is not important if you only have a few photo prints to scan. If you have hundreds or more photo prints speed becomes important. For faster scanning you should scan at the lowest resolution that is satisfactory - for most paper prints 300 to 600 DPI is enough.. Different scanners scan at different speeds measured by the number of scans per minute. When buying a scanner pay attention to its speed.
Photo prints feeding: The type of photo feeding mechanism is not important if you are only scanning a few photo prints. It is important if you have many photo prints to scan. In such cases make sure that the scanner you buy supports fast and easy loading of photo prints. High-end scanners can load a stack of photo prints and automatically fetch and scan them. You should use such scanners if you are scanning hundreds or more photo prints.
Negatives: Negatives are also known as film. Negatives are developed film usually in 35mm format from which paper photo prints are printed. Scanning negatives is harder than scanning paper photo prints. In most cases it is easier and also cheaper to use a professional negative scanning service (example are services such as www.slidescanning.com, www.myspecialphotos.com, www.pixmonix.com and many more). Standard home flat scanners are not good enough for negative scanning and you will need to spend money and purchase a special film/slides scanner. Negatives are small high resolution sources and thus require scanning at higher DPI than paper prints. In most cases 2400DPI or higher should be used. Negatives also need to be lit in a special way when they are scanned. Flat home paper scanners project light on the paper from the front and then scan by capturing the reflected light. Negatives on the other hand need to be lit from the back and scanning is done by capturing the light the goes through
the negative.
Slides: very similar to negatives used for projecting photos on large screens. The same considerations and tips for negatives scanning also apply to slides.
By: ziv haparnas
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
Scanning Paper Prints To Digital Photos On Your Hard Disk
Sometimes you find yourself in a situation when you have to scan paper prints, negatives or slides and store them as digital photos on your computer. Although the reason for doing that can vary there are some common considerations to scanning paper prints. In this article we will go over some of them and try to make your scanning experience easier.
There are three types of prints that you might be scanning:
Paper prints: the most common, usually at sizes like 4X6 and 5X7.
Negatives: also known simply as film. This is the processed film usually 35mm from which paper prints are made.
Slides: very similar to negatives used for projecting photos on a large screen.
Scanning paper photos prints.
Photo paper prints are easy to scan. You can choose to scan them yourself at home (purchasing a scanner that can do the job is usually cheap and costs less than a $100). You can also choose to mail them (or hand them) to a professional scanning service that will scan them for you and mail you back the originals and a DVD with the digital scans (such services include www.digmypics.com, www.digitalpickle.com, www.britepix.com and many more)
There are pros and cons to both scanning at home and using a professional service. If you have a small number of photos scanning at home is easier. If you have plenty of photos using a service might be easier but you can end up spending more money.
When scanning at home consider the following:
Resolution: the resolution of a scan is measured by the number of dots per inch that the scanner can produce. Most scanners can scan at 1200 DPI or more. Usually the scanner can be set to scan at different resolutions. The higher the resolution the slower the scan and the bigger the photo file size will be. For most paper prints scanning at 300 to 600 DPI is enough but you can experiment scanning at higher resolutions if you feel it provides better results.
Speed: If you have a small number of photos speed is not an issue. If you have hundreds or more of photos scanning speed becomes important. To get fast scans you would have to scan at the lowest resolution possible that results in good enough scans – for most paper prints 300 to 600 DPI is enough.. Also if you’re going to buy a scanner check the scanning speed (usually measured in the number of scans per minute make sure that you check the speed at the DPI you’re going to use).
Photo feeding: if you only have a small number of photos this is not an issue. If you have many photos make sure that the scanner you buy allows fast and easy loading of photos. Some higher-end scanners will let you load a stack of photos and will automatically feed and scan them for you. These scanners are the right choice if you are planning on scanning hundreds or more photos.
Scanning negatives and slides
Scanning negatives and slides is harder than scanning paper prints. In most cases it is easier and maybe cheaper to use a professional scanning service (such services include www.slidescanning.com, www.myspecialphotos.com, www.pixmonix.com and many more). If you want to scan at home your standard flat scanner will not be good enough. In most cases you will need to spend money on purchasing a film/slides scanner. Those scanners are more expensive than the flat paper scanners. Negatives and slides are small high resolution sources and thus require scanning at higher DPI than paper prints. In most cases 2400DPI or higher should be used.
The considerations for scanning negatives and slides are similar to scanning paper prints. If you need to scan just a few negatives or slides speed and ease are not important but if you’re going to scan hundreds or more you should spend more money on scanners that can feed the negatives or slides automatically or can just load a roll of film and scan it.
By: ziv haparnas
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
There are three types of prints that you might be scanning:
Paper prints: the most common, usually at sizes like 4X6 and 5X7.
Negatives: also known simply as film. This is the processed film usually 35mm from which paper prints are made.
Slides: very similar to negatives used for projecting photos on a large screen.
Scanning paper photos prints.
Photo paper prints are easy to scan. You can choose to scan them yourself at home (purchasing a scanner that can do the job is usually cheap and costs less than a $100). You can also choose to mail them (or hand them) to a professional scanning service that will scan them for you and mail you back the originals and a DVD with the digital scans (such services include www.digmypics.com, www.digitalpickle.com, www.britepix.com and many more)
There are pros and cons to both scanning at home and using a professional service. If you have a small number of photos scanning at home is easier. If you have plenty of photos using a service might be easier but you can end up spending more money.
When scanning at home consider the following:
Resolution: the resolution of a scan is measured by the number of dots per inch that the scanner can produce. Most scanners can scan at 1200 DPI or more. Usually the scanner can be set to scan at different resolutions. The higher the resolution the slower the scan and the bigger the photo file size will be. For most paper prints scanning at 300 to 600 DPI is enough but you can experiment scanning at higher resolutions if you feel it provides better results.
Speed: If you have a small number of photos speed is not an issue. If you have hundreds or more of photos scanning speed becomes important. To get fast scans you would have to scan at the lowest resolution possible that results in good enough scans – for most paper prints 300 to 600 DPI is enough.. Also if you’re going to buy a scanner check the scanning speed (usually measured in the number of scans per minute make sure that you check the speed at the DPI you’re going to use).
Photo feeding: if you only have a small number of photos this is not an issue. If you have many photos make sure that the scanner you buy allows fast and easy loading of photos. Some higher-end scanners will let you load a stack of photos and will automatically feed and scan them for you. These scanners are the right choice if you are planning on scanning hundreds or more photos.
Scanning negatives and slides
Scanning negatives and slides is harder than scanning paper prints. In most cases it is easier and maybe cheaper to use a professional scanning service (such services include www.slidescanning.com, www.myspecialphotos.com, www.pixmonix.com and many more). If you want to scan at home your standard flat scanner will not be good enough. In most cases you will need to spend money on purchasing a film/slides scanner. Those scanners are more expensive than the flat paper scanners. Negatives and slides are small high resolution sources and thus require scanning at higher DPI than paper prints. In most cases 2400DPI or higher should be used.
The considerations for scanning negatives and slides are similar to scanning paper prints. If you need to scan just a few negatives or slides speed and ease are not important but if you’re going to scan hundreds or more you should spend more money on scanners that can feed the negatives or slides automatically or can just load a roll of film and scan it.
By: ziv haparnas
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
How Does A Barcode Scanner Work?
To understand how a barcode scanner work, it is important to first understand how barcodes are produced and being read.
Each barcode has specific symbols defined as a series of bars in a barcode. The way to differentiate the barcode is by the height and width as well as the bar spacing. Each strip of bar can represent a number, character or alphanumeric character depending on which type of barcode symbology set is used.
Usually a barcode contains a start and end bar to denote the starting and ending point of the barcode. Sometimes, there is an additional bar called the checksum bar. The purpose of the checksum bar is used to determine whether the barcode is correct after calculation and ensures the accuracy of the barcode.
The barcode scanner’s photosensors can then read the barcodes and convert them to electrical pulses. Since each strip of bar is equivalent to a character, the barcode software can easily convert these electrical pulses into readable text that can be displayed on a monitor. This process is actually very fast and only takes a few milliseconds.
Nowadays there are many varieties of barcode scanners models. Their usage depends a lot on the type of industry and the work environment. Examples are desktop models, handheld and portable models.
One of the most popular type is the wireless barcode scanner. They connect to the base station or workstations wirelessly and can transmit data back to the terminal as long as they are within the wireless range radius.
Wireless barcode scanner are often used in the warehouse industry where workers can easily scan a barcode that can be placed in awkward positions or angles. It is also used in industries where goods are often moving from one location to another. Using a wireless barcode scanner allows freedom of movement and thus more efficient.
By: Ricky Lim
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
Each barcode has specific symbols defined as a series of bars in a barcode. The way to differentiate the barcode is by the height and width as well as the bar spacing. Each strip of bar can represent a number, character or alphanumeric character depending on which type of barcode symbology set is used.
Usually a barcode contains a start and end bar to denote the starting and ending point of the barcode. Sometimes, there is an additional bar called the checksum bar. The purpose of the checksum bar is used to determine whether the barcode is correct after calculation and ensures the accuracy of the barcode.
The barcode scanner’s photosensors can then read the barcodes and convert them to electrical pulses. Since each strip of bar is equivalent to a character, the barcode software can easily convert these electrical pulses into readable text that can be displayed on a monitor. This process is actually very fast and only takes a few milliseconds.
Nowadays there are many varieties of barcode scanners models. Their usage depends a lot on the type of industry and the work environment. Examples are desktop models, handheld and portable models.
One of the most popular type is the wireless barcode scanner. They connect to the base station or workstations wirelessly and can transmit data back to the terminal as long as they are within the wireless range radius.
Wireless barcode scanner are often used in the warehouse industry where workers can easily scan a barcode that can be placed in awkward positions or angles. It is also used in industries where goods are often moving from one location to another. Using a wireless barcode scanner allows freedom of movement and thus more efficient.
By: Ricky Lim
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
Shopping Advice On Scanners: Buying Guide
A scanner is a peripheral device which enables to digitalise documents. It is the perfect instrument to transform your souvenirs and written papers into digital documents that time won't wait for. Some scanners are capable of digitalizing any type of document; others are destined for specific formats, from the most common to the most particular (such as business card scanners). There exist a scanner for every use, but there will be necessarily one which will be the connection between yourself and your computer.
Look before Buying Scanner
Different Type of scanner
What differentiates all these scanners, before any technical considerations, is the type of documents they are capable to digitalise.
• Sheetfed scanner
The sheetfed scanner is uniquely capable to digitalise sheet per sheet. It is enough to put your sheet into a feeder or directly into an opening for it to appear just a few seconds later unto your screen. This type of scanner is very compact but very limited in its usage. In fact, it has a tendency to disappear.
• Flat scanner
The flat scanner is the most common type of scanner. It can digitalise all types of documents, of different sizes (more often A4, but there also exists A3 scanners). To digitalise your document, you just need to place it against the device's screen. Today many flat scanners propose in option a back for your transparencies. This option allows you to digitalise all types of transparent documents, including documents on film transparencies and negatives (24x36 films...). You got it; this is currently the type of scanner the most polyvalent available.
• Film scanner
First and foremost destined for professionals, the film scanner is specialised in the digitalisation of 24x36 negatives or APS. It can achieve very high resolutions and its quality is excellent, but its use domain is very restricted.
Other types of scanners exist, even more specific, such as business card scanners (useful when you have a large batch of contacts to manage), barcode scanners or pen scanners allowing you to digitalise a single line of text at a time.
A scanner of:
10 bits can distinguish 1,024 colours.
24 bits can distinguish 16.7 million colours.
42 bits can distinguish 440 billion colours.
Today a scanner must at least be capable to sample 24 bits.
Optical resolution: in "dot per inch" (dpi) or "point per inch" (ppi)
It is the number of points that the scanner sensor is capable to distinguish on a surface per square inch. Today it is crucial to choose a scanner digitalising at a resolution of at least 600x600 ppi.
Colour sampling depth
Measured in bits, it is the number of colour gradation that the scanner is capable of dissociating. The higher their number, the better the colour gradation will be restored and the more your document will be faithfully restituted.
Interfaces
Nowadays, scanners propose different types of interfaces, sometimes even simultaneously. You must, of course, have the appropriate port in question on your computer.
• Parallel Port
The parallel port is the most widely used interface on scanners and printers for several years. It is today phasing out, taken over by USB (Universal Serial Bus) which offers superior performances and a reduced processor's resources usage.
• USB (Universal Serial Bus)
As with most actual peripherals, scanners can connect to your computer via a USB port. Very fast and practical to use, this interface is also compatible to both PC and Mac, and certain scanners can be even fed (electricity wise) directly from the USB port.
• SCSI (Small Computer System Device)
Destined above all for professional and work stations, the SCSI interface has the lowest processor resources consumption. These types of scanners are becoming rarer and are often top of the range models.
The software
The programs delivered with the scanner are classified primarily into two large categories:
• Image editing
The provided versions are usually lighter versions of the commercial software which cost several hundreds of pounds. They are good enough for small works but can appear more limited for an advanced editing.
• Character recognition
Also named OCR, it is a major advantage of scanners. Thanks to this software, they can read a "text image" and transform it into a classical text document, while keeping page-setting, the images and illustrations of the original document. Today the rate of recognition nears 100% but some small manual improvements may be sometimes necessary.
Some scanners are pretty and slim, others austere and massif. Some are equipped with buttons in frontage which make it possible to automate certain tasks (such as for example the launching of a photocopy or a digitalization by the simple touch of a button), others can also function whilst maintained vertically. Depending on the main use of your scanner it may be appealing to look into these kinds of annexed functionalities.
By: Vinay Choubey
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
Look before Buying Scanner
Different Type of scanner
What differentiates all these scanners, before any technical considerations, is the type of documents they are capable to digitalise.
• Sheetfed scanner
The sheetfed scanner is uniquely capable to digitalise sheet per sheet. It is enough to put your sheet into a feeder or directly into an opening for it to appear just a few seconds later unto your screen. This type of scanner is very compact but very limited in its usage. In fact, it has a tendency to disappear.
• Flat scanner
The flat scanner is the most common type of scanner. It can digitalise all types of documents, of different sizes (more often A4, but there also exists A3 scanners). To digitalise your document, you just need to place it against the device's screen. Today many flat scanners propose in option a back for your transparencies. This option allows you to digitalise all types of transparent documents, including documents on film transparencies and negatives (24x36 films...). You got it; this is currently the type of scanner the most polyvalent available.
• Film scanner
First and foremost destined for professionals, the film scanner is specialised in the digitalisation of 24x36 negatives or APS. It can achieve very high resolutions and its quality is excellent, but its use domain is very restricted.
Other types of scanners exist, even more specific, such as business card scanners (useful when you have a large batch of contacts to manage), barcode scanners or pen scanners allowing you to digitalise a single line of text at a time.
A scanner of:
10 bits can distinguish 1,024 colours.
24 bits can distinguish 16.7 million colours.
42 bits can distinguish 440 billion colours.
Today a scanner must at least be capable to sample 24 bits.
Optical resolution: in "dot per inch" (dpi) or "point per inch" (ppi)
It is the number of points that the scanner sensor is capable to distinguish on a surface per square inch. Today it is crucial to choose a scanner digitalising at a resolution of at least 600x600 ppi.
Colour sampling depth
Measured in bits, it is the number of colour gradation that the scanner is capable of dissociating. The higher their number, the better the colour gradation will be restored and the more your document will be faithfully restituted.
Interfaces
Nowadays, scanners propose different types of interfaces, sometimes even simultaneously. You must, of course, have the appropriate port in question on your computer.
• Parallel Port
The parallel port is the most widely used interface on scanners and printers for several years. It is today phasing out, taken over by USB (Universal Serial Bus) which offers superior performances and a reduced processor's resources usage.
• USB (Universal Serial Bus)
As with most actual peripherals, scanners can connect to your computer via a USB port. Very fast and practical to use, this interface is also compatible to both PC and Mac, and certain scanners can be even fed (electricity wise) directly from the USB port.
• SCSI (Small Computer System Device)
Destined above all for professional and work stations, the SCSI interface has the lowest processor resources consumption. These types of scanners are becoming rarer and are often top of the range models.
The software
The programs delivered with the scanner are classified primarily into two large categories:
• Image editing
The provided versions are usually lighter versions of the commercial software which cost several hundreds of pounds. They are good enough for small works but can appear more limited for an advanced editing.
• Character recognition
Also named OCR, it is a major advantage of scanners. Thanks to this software, they can read a "text image" and transform it into a classical text document, while keeping page-setting, the images and illustrations of the original document. Today the rate of recognition nears 100% but some small manual improvements may be sometimes necessary.
Some scanners are pretty and slim, others austere and massif. Some are equipped with buttons in frontage which make it possible to automate certain tasks (such as for example the launching of a photocopy or a digitalization by the simple touch of a button), others can also function whilst maintained vertically. Depending on the main use of your scanner it may be appealing to look into these kinds of annexed functionalities.
By: Vinay Choubey
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
How to Scan Your Images and Use Your Scanner and Print Your Photos
By: Christy Berger
Here are some easy step by step instructions to get the most out of your scanner for you.
1. Carefully clean the scanner glass with a piece of cloth or glass cleaner and allow it to dry.
2. Make sure the scanner is on.
3. Place the item on the scanner glass with the image facing down. Ensure that the actual print area is parallel to the edges of the scanner.
4. After you start the scanner software, run a preview. If your scanner software does not run the preview automatically, do so yourself.
5. If your picture or graphic appears skewed or crooked in the preview, line it up better and repeat the preview.
6. On the preview, use your mouse to outline the desired scan area.
7. If you are going to use Photoshop (or any other image editing program), scan all color images as 'millions of colors'. Otherwise, use grey scale for black and white.
8. Adjust the scanner resolution. Set it to 300 dpi to scan for printing and 72 dpi for scanning for use on the web.
9. Try the auto-exposure button if applicable in your scanner software to adjust brightness and contrast, if needed.
10. Click Scan or Final to scan the image.
12. Save image in tif, psd or bmp if you are scanning to print. Save it in jpg or gif if you are scanning for the web.
With all scanner software, the scanning features and scanning process are generally similar. However, here are a few scanner software programs that we recommend.
If you want to scan from your transparencies and produce good quality 24bit images somewhat automatically, then Silverfast AI Scanner Software could be a good choice for you. If you want to scan negatives, then you may find Vuescan Scanning Software pretty useful. Any program needs to be compatible with your scanner.
Other Recommended Scanner Software:
HP PrecisionScan
Microtek ScanWizard 5
Microtek ScanWizard Pro 6
Minolta Scan Dual II
Umax VistaScan
Umax MagicScan
Few final tips to add on scanning and printing your scanned images are:
• Choose the best possible photo. Although you can make adjustments on your image with the image editing programs, the better your original scanning photo, the better your final scan will be. For better results, choose pictures with good contrast and that also have good lighting.
• Always scan your image in the position or direction in which the image will be used. If you rotate the image in your image editing program, some detail will be lost.
• Scan only the part of the image that you need. If you don’t need the whole image but only a small portion of it, then just scan that portion. Your scanner software has the tools to do this.
• To make adjustments to color and sharpness on your scanned image, use your image editor, not the scanning software of your scanner.
• When saving a jpg, a quality of 2, 3 or 4 is generally sufficient for scanning for the web.
• When you are editing, don’t forget that the image's appearance will change from monitor to monitor. Also, the height and width of the image will vary from software to software.
• Read the manual for your scanner software if available and get to know your scanner software. Or, just play with the scanner software until you are sufficiently familiar with it. As you make more and more scans, you will better understand how to get the best results from your scanner.
Article Source: http://www.articlewheel.com
Here are some easy step by step instructions to get the most out of your scanner for you.
1. Carefully clean the scanner glass with a piece of cloth or glass cleaner and allow it to dry.
2. Make sure the scanner is on.
3. Place the item on the scanner glass with the image facing down. Ensure that the actual print area is parallel to the edges of the scanner.
4. After you start the scanner software, run a preview. If your scanner software does not run the preview automatically, do so yourself.
5. If your picture or graphic appears skewed or crooked in the preview, line it up better and repeat the preview.
6. On the preview, use your mouse to outline the desired scan area.
7. If you are going to use Photoshop (or any other image editing program), scan all color images as 'millions of colors'. Otherwise, use grey scale for black and white.
8. Adjust the scanner resolution. Set it to 300 dpi to scan for printing and 72 dpi for scanning for use on the web.
9. Try the auto-exposure button if applicable in your scanner software to adjust brightness and contrast, if needed.
10. Click Scan or Final to scan the image.
12. Save image in tif, psd or bmp if you are scanning to print. Save it in jpg or gif if you are scanning for the web.
With all scanner software, the scanning features and scanning process are generally similar. However, here are a few scanner software programs that we recommend.
If you want to scan from your transparencies and produce good quality 24bit images somewhat automatically, then Silverfast AI Scanner Software could be a good choice for you. If you want to scan negatives, then you may find Vuescan Scanning Software pretty useful. Any program needs to be compatible with your scanner.
Other Recommended Scanner Software:
HP PrecisionScan
Microtek ScanWizard 5
Microtek ScanWizard Pro 6
Minolta Scan Dual II
Umax VistaScan
Umax MagicScan
Few final tips to add on scanning and printing your scanned images are:
• Choose the best possible photo. Although you can make adjustments on your image with the image editing programs, the better your original scanning photo, the better your final scan will be. For better results, choose pictures with good contrast and that also have good lighting.
• Always scan your image in the position or direction in which the image will be used. If you rotate the image in your image editing program, some detail will be lost.
• Scan only the part of the image that you need. If you don’t need the whole image but only a small portion of it, then just scan that portion. Your scanner software has the tools to do this.
• To make adjustments to color and sharpness on your scanned image, use your image editor, not the scanning software of your scanner.
• When saving a jpg, a quality of 2, 3 or 4 is generally sufficient for scanning for the web.
• When you are editing, don’t forget that the image's appearance will change from monitor to monitor. Also, the height and width of the image will vary from software to software.
• Read the manual for your scanner software if available and get to know your scanner software. Or, just play with the scanner software until you are sufficiently familiar with it. As you make more and more scans, you will better understand how to get the best results from your scanner.
Article Source: http://www.articlewheel.com
The need for photocopiers in any office
Author: Melanie Stainforth
Photocopiers are common in the workplace, but are increasingly becoming used in the home and home office.
Photocopiers are one of the most essential equipments in the modern office. The photocopier has become standard equipment, whether it is a large or small business establishment. Photocopiers allow users to create duplicate copy of an original image or a document.
Photocopiers are common in the workplace, but are increasingly becoming used in the home and home office.
Photocopiers are one of the most essential equipments in the modern office. The photocopier has become standard equipment, whether it is a large or small business establishment. Photocopiers allow users to create duplicate copy of an original image or a document.
Let us look on how photocopiers work and how could an exact copy of the document or picture be taken using a photocopier.
Photocopying Process
Plain paper photocopier works by reflecting light from the original machine so that the image is projected onto a ‘photoreceptor’ – an electrically charged drum or belt. The drum features a photosensitive surface and it tends to lose the electrostatic charge when it is directly exposed to light. The reflected light generates a pattern of charges on the drum or belt and provides a latent image. The electrostatic charge attracts the toner and regenerates the image permanently onto the paper by pressure and heat.
Color photocopiers
Color toners were first available in the market in the 1950s. However, full color photocopiers became popular after the release of 3M in 1968, which used a dye sublimation process rather than the usual electrostatic technology. The first electrostatic color copier developed by Canon hit the market in 1973.
In the last few years, it is seen that high end photocopiers have adopted digital technology, with the copier comprising of an integrated scanner and laser printer. The latest high end photocopiers come with several other advantages including automatic image quality enhancement and the ability to scan pages independently for the process of printing them. Some digital photocopiers can also function as high-speed scanners. Most of such models are backed with the ability to send documents through email or make them available on a local area network.
While purchasing a photocopier for your business or office use, you need to consider several features to make the selection process much easy. Some of the main points one needs to consider while purchasing a photocopier include:
· Deciding on a digital photocopier with an ordinary one
· The size and speed of the machine
· Determining the paper delivery and capacity you need
· The type of output features required such as sorting, finishing, or stapling
· If you are planning to purchase a digital photocopier, determine whether you need to connect it to the network or work as a standalone single unit.
A photocopier is an investment in your business or office, hence it is a better idea to compare the features and the prices of various machines before you spend your hard earned money for purchasing a machine.
Article Source: http://www.article99.comThe need for photocopiers in any office
Author: Melanie Stainforth
Photocopiers are common in the workplace, but are increasingly becoming used in the home and home office.
Photocopiers are one of the most essential equipments in the modern office. The photocopier has become standard equipment, whether it is a large or small business establishment. Photocopiers allow users to create duplicate copy of an original image or a document.
Let us look on how photocopiers work and how could an exact copy of the document or picture be taken using a photocopier.
Photocopying Process
Plain paper photocopier works by reflecting light from the original machine so that the image is projected onto a ‘photoreceptor’ – an electrically charged drum or belt. The drum features a photosensitive surface and it tends to lose the electrostatic charge when it is directly exposed to light. The reflected light generates a pattern of charges on the drum or belt and provides a latent image. The electrostatic charge attracts the toner and regenerates the image permanently onto the paper by pressure and heat.
Color photocopiers
Color toners were first available in the market in the 1950s. However, full color photocopiers became popular after the release of 3M in 1968, which used a dye sublimation process rather than the usual electrostatic technology. The first electrostatic color copier developed by Canon hit the market in 1973.
In the last few years, it is seen that high end photocopiers have adopted digital technology, with the copier comprising of an integrated scanner and laser printer. The latest high end photocopiers come with several other advantages including automatic image quality enhancement and the ability to scan pages independently for the process of printing them. Some digital photocopiers can also function as high-speed scanners. Most of such models are backed with the ability to send documents through email or make them available on a local area network.
While purchasing a photocopier for your business or office use, you need to consider several features to make the selection process much easy. Some of the main points one needs to consider while purchasing a photocopier include:
· Deciding on a digital photocopier with an ordinary one
· The size and speed of the machine
· Determining the paper delivery and capacity you need
· The type of output features required such as sorting, finishing, or stapling
· If you are planning to purchase a digital photocopier, determine whether you need to connect it to the network or work as a standalone single unit.
A photocopier is an investment in your business or office, hence it is a better idea to compare the features and the prices of various machines before you spend your hard earned money for purchasing a machine.
http://www.article99.com
Photocopiers are common in the workplace, but are increasingly becoming used in the home and home office.
Photocopiers are one of the most essential equipments in the modern office. The photocopier has become standard equipment, whether it is a large or small business establishment. Photocopiers allow users to create duplicate copy of an original image or a document.
Let us look on how photocopiers work and how could an exact copy of the document or picture be taken using a photocopier.
Photocopying Process
Plain paper photocopier works by reflecting light from the original machine so that the image is projected onto a ‘photoreceptor’ – an electrically charged drum or belt. The drum features a photosensitive surface and it tends to lose the electrostatic charge when it is directly exposed to light. The reflected light generates a pattern of charges on the drum or belt and provides a latent image. The electrostatic charge attracts the toner and regenerates the image permanently onto the paper by pressure and heat.
Color photocopiers
Color toners were first available in the market in the 1950s. However, full color photocopiers became popular after the release of 3M in 1968, which used a dye sublimation process rather than the usual electrostatic technology. The first electrostatic color copier developed by Canon hit the market in 1973.
In the last few years, it is seen that high end photocopiers have adopted digital technology, with the copier comprising of an integrated scanner and laser printer. The latest high end photocopiers come with several other advantages including automatic image quality enhancement and the ability to scan pages independently for the process of printing them. Some digital photocopiers can also function as high-speed scanners. Most of such models are backed with the ability to send documents through email or make them available on a local area network.
While purchasing a photocopier for your business or office use, you need to consider several features to make the selection process much easy. Some of the main points one needs to consider while purchasing a photocopier include:
· Deciding on a digital photocopier with an ordinary one
· The size and speed of the machine
· Determining the paper delivery and capacity you need
· The type of output features required such as sorting, finishing, or stapling
· If you are planning to purchase a digital photocopier, determine whether you need to connect it to the network or work as a standalone single unit.
A photocopier is an investment in your business or office, hence it is a better idea to compare the features and the prices of various machines before you spend your hard earned money for purchasing a machine.
http://www.article99.com
Choose The Right Photo Paper To Print Pictures
Choosing the right photo paper for printing is one of the most important factors in producing great prints. Be it pictures or text, you usually just borrow what's in the copier. But the right printer photo paper makes an immense difference in print quality. To make the right choice, we must know the basics of selecting and printing on paper for general use and pictures.
1. Paper Basics:
To choose the right photo paper for the required print keep in mind – the opacity, brightness, weight, caliper and finish. First, it is important to know what you are printing. Black and white documents are very different from full color photos. There are some multipurpose papers which are good for both. But if you want crisp, vibrant photos that will last a long time, then of course you need to use paper which is designed just for photos.
• Opacity:
This means how see-through is the paper? The more the opacity, less of the printed text will bleed through to the other side. This is especially important for double-sided prints. High opacity paper is considered good for documents such as brochures, newsletters and calendars. Photo papers have high opacity of about 94-97 usually.
• Weight:
Paper weight is expressed in pounds (lb.) or as grams per square meter (g/m2).This ranges from light weight newsprint to very heavy cardboard. Mostly quality business paper is 20 to 24 pound bond; the greeting card paper is heavier – usually in the range of 60 – 65 lb.
• Brightness:
Brightness basically means the amount of light reflected from the surface of the paper. Higher brightness will produce crisper text with better contrast and a brighter background for color and images. It is expressed in numbers 1 to 100. Photo papers have brightness number in high 90's. But then not all papers are labeled with their brightness rating. You will simply have to compare two or more papers side by side to measure up their brightness.
• Caliper:
This is basically the thickness of the paper. Thickness affects its handling; whether the paper is stiffer and will resist creases and tears etc. Its unit of measure is 'mil'. Photo paper is usually 7 to 10 mils thick.
• Finish:
The finish of the paper can be matte glossy with lessening degrees of glossiness as semi-gloss, soft-gloss or satin-gloss. It is the coating on paper as glossy photo paper gives the printed photos the look and feel of photographs. Glossy papers take time in drying as the coating keeps the paper from readily absorbing the ink. However, quick dry gloss finishes are available nowadays. Mirror-like finish of high-gloss media is preferred for color photographs and smooth matte finishes for black and white photographs and business documents.
2. Type of ink used
After understanding the paper basics the next point of consideration is the type of ink being used. Inkjet printers use either dye-based or pigment-based inks. Some papers are compatible with dye-based inks and some yield superb results with pigment-based inks and some are attuned to both ink types. Generally photo-quality desktop inkjet printers use dye-based inks. Listed below are a few of the well-known pigment-based printer modals available at present. EPSON STYLUS Photo 2000P, EPSON STYLUS Photo 2100 and 2200, EPSON C70, C80 and C82. So if your printer does not fall in the mentioned modal number, it uses dye-based inks.
By: Ann woods
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
1. Paper Basics:
To choose the right photo paper for the required print keep in mind – the opacity, brightness, weight, caliper and finish. First, it is important to know what you are printing. Black and white documents are very different from full color photos. There are some multipurpose papers which are good for both. But if you want crisp, vibrant photos that will last a long time, then of course you need to use paper which is designed just for photos.
• Opacity:
This means how see-through is the paper? The more the opacity, less of the printed text will bleed through to the other side. This is especially important for double-sided prints. High opacity paper is considered good for documents such as brochures, newsletters and calendars. Photo papers have high opacity of about 94-97 usually.
• Weight:
Paper weight is expressed in pounds (lb.) or as grams per square meter (g/m2).This ranges from light weight newsprint to very heavy cardboard. Mostly quality business paper is 20 to 24 pound bond; the greeting card paper is heavier – usually in the range of 60 – 65 lb.
• Brightness:
Brightness basically means the amount of light reflected from the surface of the paper. Higher brightness will produce crisper text with better contrast and a brighter background for color and images. It is expressed in numbers 1 to 100. Photo papers have brightness number in high 90's. But then not all papers are labeled with their brightness rating. You will simply have to compare two or more papers side by side to measure up their brightness.
• Caliper:
This is basically the thickness of the paper. Thickness affects its handling; whether the paper is stiffer and will resist creases and tears etc. Its unit of measure is 'mil'. Photo paper is usually 7 to 10 mils thick.
• Finish:
The finish of the paper can be matte glossy with lessening degrees of glossiness as semi-gloss, soft-gloss or satin-gloss. It is the coating on paper as glossy photo paper gives the printed photos the look and feel of photographs. Glossy papers take time in drying as the coating keeps the paper from readily absorbing the ink. However, quick dry gloss finishes are available nowadays. Mirror-like finish of high-gloss media is preferred for color photographs and smooth matte finishes for black and white photographs and business documents.
2. Type of ink used
After understanding the paper basics the next point of consideration is the type of ink being used. Inkjet printers use either dye-based or pigment-based inks. Some papers are compatible with dye-based inks and some yield superb results with pigment-based inks and some are attuned to both ink types. Generally photo-quality desktop inkjet printers use dye-based inks. Listed below are a few of the well-known pigment-based printer modals available at present. EPSON STYLUS Photo 2000P, EPSON STYLUS Photo 2100 and 2200, EPSON C70, C80 and C82. So if your printer does not fall in the mentioned modal number, it uses dye-based inks.
By: Ann woods
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
Tips On Recycling Office Paper
By: Jason Murphy
There are several good reasons why office paper must be recycled. First, papers used in offices are usually high-grade, and it's a shame to see these quality paper reduced to waste. A staggering 77% of these papers are recyclable. Second, an average business office employee can produce a pound and a half of paper waste in working for a business office daily. Finance offices generate waste paper from two to three pounds per employee daily. Third, production costs can be lowered simply by reducing office paper costs and using used paper whenever possible. Removing office paper from the garbage can reduce waste collection fees by 50%. Fourth, a ton of paper recycled is 6.7 cu yds saved landfill space. Removing this much paper from our waste would prolong the service of present landfill sites. Whether your paper supplies are plain white paper, copier paper, office paper, inkjet paper, or letter paper, these are all easily recycled.
There are easy steps to recycling office paper. Recycling can start as soon as your employees are informed and consulted regarding the adoption of recycling schemes. Make sure that all employees know about the recycling program of your company. Recycling systems as simple as monitoring paper use and separating white paper from colored paper are widely-practiced in most offices. Placing labeled trash cans has proved to be an effective recycling method. Be sure, however, that the cans are placed where waste paper amounts to a significant number like in the computer rooms and records sections. Put the recycling can together in an accessible area so people will actually use them. Consulting the employees who work in that particular area where to position the recycling cans is a good idea. It's always a good idea to separate white papers like bond paper, copier paper, paper supplies, office paper, inkjet paper, and letter paper, together rather than mixing them with other paper like cardboard and newspapers. This way, even if you don't reuse the paper but sell them to recycling shops they will a higher value, since white paper costs more. It's also important to inform the maintenance crew. After all, you wouldn't want to waste your employees' recycling efforts undone by having an uninformed janitor haul your papers and dump them with food garbage. It's advised to train them how the recycling system works.
Lastly, these reams of bond paper, copier paper, paper supplies, office paper, inkjet paper, and letter paper materials can bring you good money. So it's recommended to have a log book or record book handy to record the amount or weight of office paper that came from your company. This way, you can keep track of your paper wastes and evaluate if your recycling paper program is actually working to reduce paper use and waste in your office. Also, by keeping a record and receipt, you can be sure to be properly paid for them by the recycling companies.
Article Directory: http://www.articlecube.com
There are several good reasons why office paper must be recycled. First, papers used in offices are usually high-grade, and it's a shame to see these quality paper reduced to waste. A staggering 77% of these papers are recyclable. Second, an average business office employee can produce a pound and a half of paper waste in working for a business office daily. Finance offices generate waste paper from two to three pounds per employee daily. Third, production costs can be lowered simply by reducing office paper costs and using used paper whenever possible. Removing office paper from the garbage can reduce waste collection fees by 50%. Fourth, a ton of paper recycled is 6.7 cu yds saved landfill space. Removing this much paper from our waste would prolong the service of present landfill sites. Whether your paper supplies are plain white paper, copier paper, office paper, inkjet paper, or letter paper, these are all easily recycled.
There are easy steps to recycling office paper. Recycling can start as soon as your employees are informed and consulted regarding the adoption of recycling schemes. Make sure that all employees know about the recycling program of your company. Recycling systems as simple as monitoring paper use and separating white paper from colored paper are widely-practiced in most offices. Placing labeled trash cans has proved to be an effective recycling method. Be sure, however, that the cans are placed where waste paper amounts to a significant number like in the computer rooms and records sections. Put the recycling can together in an accessible area so people will actually use them. Consulting the employees who work in that particular area where to position the recycling cans is a good idea. It's always a good idea to separate white papers like bond paper, copier paper, paper supplies, office paper, inkjet paper, and letter paper, together rather than mixing them with other paper like cardboard and newspapers. This way, even if you don't reuse the paper but sell them to recycling shops they will a higher value, since white paper costs more. It's also important to inform the maintenance crew. After all, you wouldn't want to waste your employees' recycling efforts undone by having an uninformed janitor haul your papers and dump them with food garbage. It's advised to train them how the recycling system works.
Lastly, these reams of bond paper, copier paper, paper supplies, office paper, inkjet paper, and letter paper materials can bring you good money. So it's recommended to have a log book or record book handy to record the amount or weight of office paper that came from your company. This way, you can keep track of your paper wastes and evaluate if your recycling paper program is actually working to reduce paper use and waste in your office. Also, by keeping a record and receipt, you can be sure to be properly paid for them by the recycling companies.
Article Directory: http://www.articlecube.com
How To Scan Images & Step
Every scanner has different scanning instructions. However, the scanning process in general is similar. In this article, you will find all the information you need on how to scan images for different purposes. The useful scanning tips will help you get the maximum performance out of your scanner.
When scanning images, the intended use of the image is important. Are you planning on printing it, sending it as an email or using it on the web? Knowing what you want to do with the scanned image will help you choose the right format for your image. The most common file formats for images are tif, gif, jpg, bmp and psd (Photoshop).
Scanning for Print
If you are going to print out your scanned image, save it as a tif or bmp. The quality of gifs and jpgs in printed documents is inferior to tifs and bmps.
Scanning for Web
If you are going to use your scanned image on the web, save it as a gif or jpg file.
If it is a simple graphic image, save it as a gif file. If you will be scanning photos, save them as jpg files.
Multi-Purpose Scanning
If you are going to both print your scanned image and use it on the web, then save it in a high quality format (psd, tif, or bmp). If needed, you can always open this file later and save it as a web image.
File Formats
TIFF (extension: tif): Used for high-resolution image to be printed
GIF (extension: gif): Used for low-resolution web image, line art, or solid color
JPEG (extension: jpg): Used for low-resolution web image or photograph
Photoshop (extension: psd): Used for high-resolution image to be edited in Photoshop
Bitmap (extension: bmp): Used for high-resolution image to be printed
Knowing what you would like to do with the scanned image will help you choose the right file size. If you are going to use your image on the web, a medium to medium-low quality image will be quite sufficient.
A small image will also load faster on the web page. So you may prefer using lower sizes as the viewers of the image may get impatient waiting for a larger image to load.
For printed images, the file size may need to be higher depending on what type of a document you will use it in. The higher the file size the better the image quality. A higher- size file has a higher resolution. Resolution is the number of pixels (or dots) per inch of image (dpi).
By: Christy Berger
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
When scanning images, the intended use of the image is important. Are you planning on printing it, sending it as an email or using it on the web? Knowing what you want to do with the scanned image will help you choose the right format for your image. The most common file formats for images are tif, gif, jpg, bmp and psd (Photoshop).
Scanning for Print
If you are going to print out your scanned image, save it as a tif or bmp. The quality of gifs and jpgs in printed documents is inferior to tifs and bmps.
Scanning for Web
If you are going to use your scanned image on the web, save it as a gif or jpg file.
If it is a simple graphic image, save it as a gif file. If you will be scanning photos, save them as jpg files.
Multi-Purpose Scanning
If you are going to both print your scanned image and use it on the web, then save it in a high quality format (psd, tif, or bmp). If needed, you can always open this file later and save it as a web image.
File Formats
TIFF (extension: tif): Used for high-resolution image to be printed
GIF (extension: gif): Used for low-resolution web image, line art, or solid color
JPEG (extension: jpg): Used for low-resolution web image or photograph
Photoshop (extension: psd): Used for high-resolution image to be edited in Photoshop
Bitmap (extension: bmp): Used for high-resolution image to be printed
Knowing what you would like to do with the scanned image will help you choose the right file size. If you are going to use your image on the web, a medium to medium-low quality image will be quite sufficient.
A small image will also load faster on the web page. So you may prefer using lower sizes as the viewers of the image may get impatient waiting for a larger image to load.
For printed images, the file size may need to be higher depending on what type of a document you will use it in. The higher the file size the better the image quality. A higher- size file has a higher resolution. Resolution is the number of pixels (or dots) per inch of image (dpi).
By: Christy Berger
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
Photocopier Buying Guides
Purchasing a photocopier is something that is usually done only every four or five years. Over that time, technology advances means that the range of machines you are familiar with may have been superseded. As a consequence, it can be a challenging time for the non-expert to select the "right" copier for their organization. There are a number of checkpoints to look out for when considering which photocopier will best meet your requirements.
• The type of photocopier you will need depends on the volume and type of copying you do each day. You may only require a small number of documents to be copied, such as accounts or bills to be sent out, or you may need to copy higher volumes of print such as mailshots. Photocopiers come in a variety of sizes and copy speeds vary, but most copiers have some basic functions that are universal.
• Photocopiers use a light lens to duplicate documents; the original technology is analog, although digital copiers are becoming popular. Digital photocopiers enable the user to print color copies by converting the visual data on the original document into computer code. The computer code then programs the laser printer that creates the final copy.
• The most fundamental benefit of digital technology in copiers, apart from the ability to connect most digital machines to a network, is the way their "scan once / print many" system of operation.
• Analogue machines copy the originals placed in a document feeder, one page at a time, and then deposit multiple copies of each page in an output tray or sorter. If the number of copies exceeds the capacity of the sorter then you have to re-cycle the originals through the document feeder again. Further, the copies can only be removed from the sorter once all pages have been copied.
• A digital copier will firstly scan in all originals and store the digitized image in memory. It then reproduces the copies, one set at a time. The copied sets are then stacked, set-by-set, in the finishing (sorting) unit. This allows you to make very long, non-stop runs of multi-page sets, as you are not limited by a bin capacity, inherent in analogue machines with sorters.
• The clarity of the copy depends on the resolution of the photocopier. The resolution of the photocopier determines the quality and sharpness of an image. This is measured in dots per inch (DPI).
• When endeavouring to select the "right" sized machine for your organisation it is helpful to know the current monthly copy volume of copies done on your present copier. This can best be acquired by reviewing your copy records for the past 12 months and working out a monthly average.
• If you do not keep regular records then this information may be obtained by reviewing recent invoices received from your current supplier. These invoices generally cover a copy charge and therefore indicate the number of copies done in the billing period.
• Most digital copiers being marketed today have the ability to be connected, via an interface card or unit, to a network. It is beyond the scope of this guide (and most users) to cover all technical aspects of network connectivity so it is essential that you seek the advice of an IT specialist or the ITS Division within the university, if considering a networked device.
• Another point to look out for is the pages per minute function. This determines how many pages your copier prints per minute. The higher the number of pages, the quicker your copier speed will be. If you need documents to be enlarged or reduced, look out for the enlargement/reduction and zoom functions.
The amount of features a photocopier can have varies greatly. Modern multifunctional photocopiers can also act as fax machines, digital storage devices and computer scanners, with information stored on a hard disk. The most important thing to remember is size. If you have a small office, don’t go for an industrial sized photocopier, unless you want it to function as your office desk as well.
By: Vinay Choubey
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
• The type of photocopier you will need depends on the volume and type of copying you do each day. You may only require a small number of documents to be copied, such as accounts or bills to be sent out, or you may need to copy higher volumes of print such as mailshots. Photocopiers come in a variety of sizes and copy speeds vary, but most copiers have some basic functions that are universal.
• Photocopiers use a light lens to duplicate documents; the original technology is analog, although digital copiers are becoming popular. Digital photocopiers enable the user to print color copies by converting the visual data on the original document into computer code. The computer code then programs the laser printer that creates the final copy.
• The most fundamental benefit of digital technology in copiers, apart from the ability to connect most digital machines to a network, is the way their "scan once / print many" system of operation.
• Analogue machines copy the originals placed in a document feeder, one page at a time, and then deposit multiple copies of each page in an output tray or sorter. If the number of copies exceeds the capacity of the sorter then you have to re-cycle the originals through the document feeder again. Further, the copies can only be removed from the sorter once all pages have been copied.
• A digital copier will firstly scan in all originals and store the digitized image in memory. It then reproduces the copies, one set at a time. The copied sets are then stacked, set-by-set, in the finishing (sorting) unit. This allows you to make very long, non-stop runs of multi-page sets, as you are not limited by a bin capacity, inherent in analogue machines with sorters.
• The clarity of the copy depends on the resolution of the photocopier. The resolution of the photocopier determines the quality and sharpness of an image. This is measured in dots per inch (DPI).
• When endeavouring to select the "right" sized machine for your organisation it is helpful to know the current monthly copy volume of copies done on your present copier. This can best be acquired by reviewing your copy records for the past 12 months and working out a monthly average.
• If you do not keep regular records then this information may be obtained by reviewing recent invoices received from your current supplier. These invoices generally cover a copy charge and therefore indicate the number of copies done in the billing period.
• Most digital copiers being marketed today have the ability to be connected, via an interface card or unit, to a network. It is beyond the scope of this guide (and most users) to cover all technical aspects of network connectivity so it is essential that you seek the advice of an IT specialist or the ITS Division within the university, if considering a networked device.
• Another point to look out for is the pages per minute function. This determines how many pages your copier prints per minute. The higher the number of pages, the quicker your copier speed will be. If you need documents to be enlarged or reduced, look out for the enlargement/reduction and zoom functions.
The amount of features a photocopier can have varies greatly. Modern multifunctional photocopiers can also act as fax machines, digital storage devices and computer scanners, with information stored on a hard disk. The most important thing to remember is size. If you have a small office, don’t go for an industrial sized photocopier, unless you want it to function as your office desk as well.
By: Vinay Choubey
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
Review Of Some Handy Software To Use Your Printer & Fax Machine & Copier & Scanner
Here is a compiled list of digital photo organization software you can find in the market today.
Printing your Faxes or email
FancyFax - This program lets you create, print and fax personalized fax cover sheets. Your cover sheets can include any bitmap picture and FancyFax comes with starter clip-art. You can also choose your layout styles and fonts. If you have a FaxModem installed, you can use FancyFax to fax quick, one-page messages.
Impact ColorFax – This program is designed for users who need a simple and effective PC color faxing software solution. Impact Color Fax is designed to run on Windows NT 4.0/Win2000/XP and Win95/98/ME, and offers many features.
InterPrint – This program is an Internet email management and printing solution. With this program important messages sent to your email account can be automatically printed to your printer, and waiting for you when you arrive. Benefits include: Web-based browsing of print job status; printing from anywhere; printing anything; submit jobs as printer formatted data streams or in the native application format.
StupidFax - This program works with fax modems to automatically print and save incoming fax calls. Incoming faxes are routed and printed to the Windows default printer. Incoming faxes are logged with the time, date and status info. http://www.maxmax.com/aDownloads.htm
Turning your scanner to a copy machine
Art-Copy 3.0 – Your scanner can be turned into a copier or fax by using this program. Use your scanner to copy in color/greyscale and print it out on any printer. Or if you have a FAX Modem, it will let you scan a document to a FAX Modem. This program is easy to use and comes with full support for most printers. Comes qwith an attractive 3D, photo-realistic user interface.
Copying Machine – Copying Machine works just like any real copying machine, but has some additional capabilities. For example you can save the images to disc so you can make copies of them in the future without having to scan them again. You can make a selection on a page in order to zoom in on a particular part. Another feature is that you can align an image so it is perfectly centered when printed. http://www.meusesoft.com/
Photocopier – If you have a scanner and a printer why not combine those two into a copy machine? With this program, you just place your document on your scanners’ platen, start Photocopier, and press its Copy button. After a few moments your printer produces a copy of the document. The program has no difficult settings and is very user friendly.
By: Christy Berger
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
Printing your Faxes or email
FancyFax - This program lets you create, print and fax personalized fax cover sheets. Your cover sheets can include any bitmap picture and FancyFax comes with starter clip-art. You can also choose your layout styles and fonts. If you have a FaxModem installed, you can use FancyFax to fax quick, one-page messages.
Impact ColorFax – This program is designed for users who need a simple and effective PC color faxing software solution. Impact Color Fax is designed to run on Windows NT 4.0/Win2000/XP and Win95/98/ME, and offers many features.
InterPrint – This program is an Internet email management and printing solution. With this program important messages sent to your email account can be automatically printed to your printer, and waiting for you when you arrive. Benefits include: Web-based browsing of print job status; printing from anywhere; printing anything; submit jobs as printer formatted data streams or in the native application format.
StupidFax - This program works with fax modems to automatically print and save incoming fax calls. Incoming faxes are routed and printed to the Windows default printer. Incoming faxes are logged with the time, date and status info. http://www.maxmax.com/aDownloads.htm
Turning your scanner to a copy machine
Art-Copy 3.0 – Your scanner can be turned into a copier or fax by using this program. Use your scanner to copy in color/greyscale and print it out on any printer. Or if you have a FAX Modem, it will let you scan a document to a FAX Modem. This program is easy to use and comes with full support for most printers. Comes qwith an attractive 3D, photo-realistic user interface.
Copying Machine – Copying Machine works just like any real copying machine, but has some additional capabilities. For example you can save the images to disc so you can make copies of them in the future without having to scan them again. You can make a selection on a page in order to zoom in on a particular part. Another feature is that you can align an image so it is perfectly centered when printed. http://www.meusesoft.com/
Photocopier – If you have a scanner and a printer why not combine those two into a copy machine? With this program, you just place your document on your scanners’ platen, start Photocopier, and press its Copy button. After a few moments your printer produces a copy of the document. The program has no difficult settings and is very user friendly.
By: Christy Berger
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
Konica Minolta
Konica Minolta, the name usually brings to mind their camera or their photographic materials. However, it is also one of the top players in the printing and ink manufacturing business. The lines below will take you through a brief history of the company and touch upon their all-new environment friendly polymerized toner.
Konica’s Humble Beginnings
Like all other big names in the printing business Konica Minolta too has roots way back in the past and forayed into the printing business due to the potential of printers and inks in the market.
Rokusaburo Sugiura began selling photographic materials at his Tokyo apothecary in 1873 and laid the foundations for Konica. Minolta was founded in 1928 to initially manufacture cameras and then went on to pioneer technologies such as a latent image transfer system, the world’s first magnification and reduction photocopier and the world’s first photocopier to produce two-color images in a single pass.
Konica Minolta gave its share of firsts to the world in the imaging and printing field. Among these was the world's first double lens reflex camera in 1937, then the world’s first camera with a coated lens in 1946. The year1962 took the Hi-Matic camera by Konica Minolta beyond the realms of the earth and into space by astronaut John Glenn on Friendship 7.
Going onto the printing and copier field, Konica Minolta launched the world’s first copier to use latent image transfer in 1975, and then in 1983 came the copier with zoom magnification again another first! 1987 and 1991 saw the world’s first single-pass two-color copier and three-color combination copier and fax machines respectively. In 2001, Konica Minolta launched the polymerized toner.
Konica’s Environment Friendly Technology
The Polymerized Toner
People today are more environmentally conscious than ever. Leading this trend is the Polymerized Toner that Konica created to reduce waste and printing costs.
The Manufacturing Process:
The first step in the process is to synthesize resins that are approximately one hundred nanometers i.e. one billionth of a meter in diameter via emulsion polymerization. These polymerized resin particles are then chemically coagulated and fused into precise ratios. Coloring pigments and additives are added to obtain the standard colors.
The process also utilizes very little energy and hence conserves energy which now a days is a very important and expensive commodity!
What to Expect From the Polymerized Toner
Now why would one use the polymerized toner, here is why,
All Konica Minolta color laser printers use polymerized toner, which reproduces high-quality images to give its customers be it in professional photography or business documents, complete satisfaction and value for money.
The small diameter and uniform shape of these toner particles offer superior concealment, which means space previously left between each toner particle has now been eliminated. As a result, the toner provides consistent, high-quality images with improved reproduction of text and fine lines.
Since polymerized toner needs no oil for fusing, it produces natural-looking low-gloss color images and documents that can be written on as well as allow notes to be attached to, and are therefore suitable for business use.
Smaller toner particles have a better transfer rate to paper, which thus reduces the amount of toner used in image reproductions hence conserving the toner and reducing recurring toner replacement costs.
Polymerized toner is also friendlier to our environment. It requires less energy in its manufacturing process than conventional toners that use traditional kneading and pulverizing methods.
The amount of CO2, NOx and SOx emissions that cause global warming and acid rain are cut by approximately 30%.
Therefore if you are planning to buy a printer and are very conscious of the environment around you and would want to contribute to it’s betterment; and also be able to use technology then what are you waiting for go ahead and get yourself the appropriate printer according to your requirements from the diverse range provided by Konica Minolta.
In addition, rest assured you are getting value for money and you are not guilty of splurging on technology that will destroy our environment in the long run because Konica puts in efforts to make their products as environment friendly as is possible!
By: John Sollars
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
Konica’s Humble Beginnings
Like all other big names in the printing business Konica Minolta too has roots way back in the past and forayed into the printing business due to the potential of printers and inks in the market.
Rokusaburo Sugiura began selling photographic materials at his Tokyo apothecary in 1873 and laid the foundations for Konica. Minolta was founded in 1928 to initially manufacture cameras and then went on to pioneer technologies such as a latent image transfer system, the world’s first magnification and reduction photocopier and the world’s first photocopier to produce two-color images in a single pass.
Konica Minolta gave its share of firsts to the world in the imaging and printing field. Among these was the world's first double lens reflex camera in 1937, then the world’s first camera with a coated lens in 1946. The year1962 took the Hi-Matic camera by Konica Minolta beyond the realms of the earth and into space by astronaut John Glenn on Friendship 7.
Going onto the printing and copier field, Konica Minolta launched the world’s first copier to use latent image transfer in 1975, and then in 1983 came the copier with zoom magnification again another first! 1987 and 1991 saw the world’s first single-pass two-color copier and three-color combination copier and fax machines respectively. In 2001, Konica Minolta launched the polymerized toner.
Konica’s Environment Friendly Technology
The Polymerized Toner
People today are more environmentally conscious than ever. Leading this trend is the Polymerized Toner that Konica created to reduce waste and printing costs.
The Manufacturing Process:
The first step in the process is to synthesize resins that are approximately one hundred nanometers i.e. one billionth of a meter in diameter via emulsion polymerization. These polymerized resin particles are then chemically coagulated and fused into precise ratios. Coloring pigments and additives are added to obtain the standard colors.
The process also utilizes very little energy and hence conserves energy which now a days is a very important and expensive commodity!
What to Expect From the Polymerized Toner
Now why would one use the polymerized toner, here is why,
All Konica Minolta color laser printers use polymerized toner, which reproduces high-quality images to give its customers be it in professional photography or business documents, complete satisfaction and value for money.
The small diameter and uniform shape of these toner particles offer superior concealment, which means space previously left between each toner particle has now been eliminated. As a result, the toner provides consistent, high-quality images with improved reproduction of text and fine lines.
Since polymerized toner needs no oil for fusing, it produces natural-looking low-gloss color images and documents that can be written on as well as allow notes to be attached to, and are therefore suitable for business use.
Smaller toner particles have a better transfer rate to paper, which thus reduces the amount of toner used in image reproductions hence conserving the toner and reducing recurring toner replacement costs.
Polymerized toner is also friendlier to our environment. It requires less energy in its manufacturing process than conventional toners that use traditional kneading and pulverizing methods.
The amount of CO2, NOx and SOx emissions that cause global warming and acid rain are cut by approximately 30%.
Therefore if you are planning to buy a printer and are very conscious of the environment around you and would want to contribute to it’s betterment; and also be able to use technology then what are you waiting for go ahead and get yourself the appropriate printer according to your requirements from the diverse range provided by Konica Minolta.
In addition, rest assured you are getting value for money and you are not guilty of splurging on technology that will destroy our environment in the long run because Konica puts in efforts to make their products as environment friendly as is possible!
By: John Sollars
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
Photocopier Buying Guides - By: Vinay Choubey
Purchasing a photocopier is something that is usually done only every four or five years. Over that time, technology advances means that the range of machines you are familiar with may have been superseded. As a consequence, it can be a challenging time for the non-expert to select the "right" copier for their organization. There are a number of checkpoints to look out for when considering which photocopier will best meet your requirements.
• The type of photocopier you will need depends on the volume and type of copying you do each day. You may only require a small number of documents to be copied, such as accounts or bills to be sent out, or you may need to copy higher volumes of print such as mailshots. Photocopiers come in a variety of sizes and copy speeds vary, but most copiers have some basic functions that are universal.
• Photocopiers use a light lens to duplicate documents; the original technology is analog, although digital copiers are becoming popular. Digital photocopiers enable the user to print color copies by converting the visual data on the original document into computer code. The computer code then programs the laser printer that creates the final copy.
• The most fundamental benefit of digital technology in copiers, apart from the ability to connect most digital machines to a network, is the way their "scan once / print many" system of operation.
• Analogue machines copy the originals placed in a document feeder, one page at a time, and then deposit multiple copies of each page in an output tray or sorter. If the number of copies exceeds the capacity of the sorter then you have to re-cycle the originals through the document feeder again. Further, the copies can only be removed from the sorter once all pages have been copied.
• A digital copier will firstly scan in all originals and store the digitized image in memory. It then reproduces the copies, one set at a time. The copied sets are then stacked, set-by-set, in the finishing (sorting) unit. This allows you to make very long, non-stop runs of multi-page sets, as you are not limited by a bin capacity, inherent in analogue machines with sorters.
• The clarity of the copy depends on the resolution of the photocopier. The resolution of the photocopier determines the quality and sharpness of an image. This is measured in dots per inch (DPI).
• When endeavouring to select the "right" sized machine for your organisation it is helpful to know the current monthly copy volume of copies done on your present copier. This can best be acquired by reviewing your copy records for the past 12 months and working out a monthly average.
• If you do not keep regular records then this information may be obtained by reviewing recent invoices received from your current supplier. These invoices generally cover a copy charge and therefore indicate the number of copies done in the billing period.
• Most digital copiers being marketed today have the ability to be connected, via an interface card or unit, to a network. It is beyond the scope of this guide (and most users) to cover all technical aspects of network connectivity so it is essential that you seek the advice of an IT specialist or the ITS Division within the university, if considering a networked device.
• Another point to look out for is the pages per minute function. This determines how many pages your copier prints per minute. The higher the number of pages, the quicker your copier speed will be. If you need documents to be enlarged or reduced, look out for the enlargement/reduction and zoom functions.
The amount of features a photocopier can have varies greatly. Modern multifunctional photocopiers can also act as fax machines, digital storage devices and computer scanners, with information stored on a hard disk. The most important thing to remember is size. If you have a small office, don’t go for an industrial sized photocopier, unless you want it to function as your office desk as well.
Purchasing a photocopier is something that is usually done only every four or five years. Over that time, technology advances means that the range of machines you are familiar with may have been superseded. As a consequence, it can be a challenging time for the non-expert to select the "right" copier for their organization.
Vinay Choubey
Content Writer
Find more about Photocopier at www.ShoppingSoLow.com .
• The type of photocopier you will need depends on the volume and type of copying you do each day. You may only require a small number of documents to be copied, such as accounts or bills to be sent out, or you may need to copy higher volumes of print such as mailshots. Photocopiers come in a variety of sizes and copy speeds vary, but most copiers have some basic functions that are universal.
• Photocopiers use a light lens to duplicate documents; the original technology is analog, although digital copiers are becoming popular. Digital photocopiers enable the user to print color copies by converting the visual data on the original document into computer code. The computer code then programs the laser printer that creates the final copy.
• The most fundamental benefit of digital technology in copiers, apart from the ability to connect most digital machines to a network, is the way their "scan once / print many" system of operation.
• Analogue machines copy the originals placed in a document feeder, one page at a time, and then deposit multiple copies of each page in an output tray or sorter. If the number of copies exceeds the capacity of the sorter then you have to re-cycle the originals through the document feeder again. Further, the copies can only be removed from the sorter once all pages have been copied.
• A digital copier will firstly scan in all originals and store the digitized image in memory. It then reproduces the copies, one set at a time. The copied sets are then stacked, set-by-set, in the finishing (sorting) unit. This allows you to make very long, non-stop runs of multi-page sets, as you are not limited by a bin capacity, inherent in analogue machines with sorters.
• The clarity of the copy depends on the resolution of the photocopier. The resolution of the photocopier determines the quality and sharpness of an image. This is measured in dots per inch (DPI).
• When endeavouring to select the "right" sized machine for your organisation it is helpful to know the current monthly copy volume of copies done on your present copier. This can best be acquired by reviewing your copy records for the past 12 months and working out a monthly average.
• If you do not keep regular records then this information may be obtained by reviewing recent invoices received from your current supplier. These invoices generally cover a copy charge and therefore indicate the number of copies done in the billing period.
• Most digital copiers being marketed today have the ability to be connected, via an interface card or unit, to a network. It is beyond the scope of this guide (and most users) to cover all technical aspects of network connectivity so it is essential that you seek the advice of an IT specialist or the ITS Division within the university, if considering a networked device.
• Another point to look out for is the pages per minute function. This determines how many pages your copier prints per minute. The higher the number of pages, the quicker your copier speed will be. If you need documents to be enlarged or reduced, look out for the enlargement/reduction and zoom functions.
The amount of features a photocopier can have varies greatly. Modern multifunctional photocopiers can also act as fax machines, digital storage devices and computer scanners, with information stored on a hard disk. The most important thing to remember is size. If you have a small office, don’t go for an industrial sized photocopier, unless you want it to function as your office desk as well.
Purchasing a photocopier is something that is usually done only every four or five years. Over that time, technology advances means that the range of machines you are familiar with may have been superseded. As a consequence, it can be a challenging time for the non-expert to select the "right" copier for their organization.
Vinay Choubey
Content Writer
Find more about Photocopier at www.ShoppingSoLow.com .
Frugal Ways To Purchase Copiers
If you’re a small business (or even a sole proprietor), you may have erroneously assumed that you could never afford to pay the high price of copiers. Fortunately, the days of copiers that only the mid-to-large size companies could have on site are over. Here, we’ll look at some of the best ways to find copiers within your price range.
Share a Copier
If you work in an “incubator” or other office set-up which encourages a number of start-ups to share office space, you can snag some terrific deals on copiers. Think of it this way – if you lease a model for $1,000 a month and you spread that cost over 10 businesses, you’ll only be paying $1,200 a year for copier service. That’s an incredibly good deal, especially since you could wind up spending much more (especially when you factor in the time and gas “hidden” costs) of running to Staples every time you want to make copies.
Buy a Used Copier
Copiers that have “low mileage” can always be had. Be on the lookout for businesses that are closing their doors or, alternately, growing at a fast pace. (In the case of the latter, their current copiers might not be able to meet their demands; thus, they could have a number of copiers which they want to sell to make way for the newest models.) Make sure you let other professionals know you’re in the market for a copier; that way, you’ll have the best chances of getting one.
Buy a New Copier
You can actually find some newer copiers at some of the office supply stores in your area such as Office Max and Office Depot. They will just be basic models, of course – you won’t find fancy collating abilities and they probably cannot staple. However, they can be a phenomenal asset to any business because having a copier on your premises can make your work go much faster. And you can also make copies of articles, documents, et cetera, right on site rather than having to drive a distance just to get something printed.
Lease a Copier
As previously mentioned, it’s possible to lease copiers as a whole group. But you can also do it on your own if you have enough need for a copier. For example, if you’re a sales professional and you sell insurance, it might behoove you to have a copier in your home. That way, you can make copies right in your home office and won’t have to waste precious selling times (such as between 9:00 a.m. and noon and 3:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.) rushing around to find copiers. Call a copier shop in your area and ask for a no-obligation consultation with someone who is knowledgeable about copiers. You can probably also get a good deal through your copier liaison on some kind of maintenance package.
Again, you don’t have to assume that copiers are out of your price range. Though you might never have thought you could afford it, there are plenty of copiers out there, and there are plenty of ways for you to get some great deals.
By: Robert Michael -
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
Share a Copier
If you work in an “incubator” or other office set-up which encourages a number of start-ups to share office space, you can snag some terrific deals on copiers. Think of it this way – if you lease a model for $1,000 a month and you spread that cost over 10 businesses, you’ll only be paying $1,200 a year for copier service. That’s an incredibly good deal, especially since you could wind up spending much more (especially when you factor in the time and gas “hidden” costs) of running to Staples every time you want to make copies.
Buy a Used Copier
Copiers that have “low mileage” can always be had. Be on the lookout for businesses that are closing their doors or, alternately, growing at a fast pace. (In the case of the latter, their current copiers might not be able to meet their demands; thus, they could have a number of copiers which they want to sell to make way for the newest models.) Make sure you let other professionals know you’re in the market for a copier; that way, you’ll have the best chances of getting one.
Buy a New Copier
You can actually find some newer copiers at some of the office supply stores in your area such as Office Max and Office Depot. They will just be basic models, of course – you won’t find fancy collating abilities and they probably cannot staple. However, they can be a phenomenal asset to any business because having a copier on your premises can make your work go much faster. And you can also make copies of articles, documents, et cetera, right on site rather than having to drive a distance just to get something printed.
Lease a Copier
As previously mentioned, it’s possible to lease copiers as a whole group. But you can also do it on your own if you have enough need for a copier. For example, if you’re a sales professional and you sell insurance, it might behoove you to have a copier in your home. That way, you can make copies right in your home office and won’t have to waste precious selling times (such as between 9:00 a.m. and noon and 3:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.) rushing around to find copiers. Call a copier shop in your area and ask for a no-obligation consultation with someone who is knowledgeable about copiers. You can probably also get a good deal through your copier liaison on some kind of maintenance package.
Again, you don’t have to assume that copiers are out of your price range. Though you might never have thought you could afford it, there are plenty of copiers out there, and there are plenty of ways for you to get some great deals.
By: Robert Michael -
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
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