Know-How is Taught How

Microsoft recently conducted an online survey about personal productivity in the workplace. The 38,000 responses received from workers in 200 countries, indicate that workers rely heavily on technology to help optimize their personal and team productivity.

Productivity researcher Dr. Larry Baker, who helped design the study, said, “Not surprisingly, those who scored the highest on personal productivity also rated themselves the highest on questions that correlated to the use of technology. This seems to suggest that while today’s workers have a plethora of technologies available, there’s definite room for improvement in how organizations equip their workers with the skills to make the best use of the equipment.

With that in mind, managers should be asking whether they've provided the office equipment their workers need to achieve high productivity levels and whether workers have received the training required to use the equipment to maximum advantage.

As today’s office technology has become more feature-rich, it has also become more complex. That means users must be taught how to access the features that really could help them produce more work in less time.

CRS Printek takes pride in helping our customers not only choose the right equipment for their needs but also in showing them how they can use the equipment properly and efficiently. We hope you will call on us the next time you’re considering buying a piece of office equipment. We'll show you the most user-friendly machines on the market, and we'll make sure you and your employees know how to use the machine you finally select. ■

The traditional way to show someone a document without giving them the ability to change it is to print the document out and send it to the recipient by fax or snail mail. There’s a third way, though, that saves time, paper, ink or toner and postage or phone charges—PDF files sent as e-mail attachments.

The PDF (portable document format) file type, originally created by Adobe Systems, Inc., uses the PostScript printer description language to create an image of text and picture content. PDFs have the advantage of being readable across platforms, preserving original layout and fonts, and securing a document against alterations.

Anyone with Adobe Reader software(available for free download) or other PDF-reader software can access PDF files. To create PDF files, however, you’ll need to purchase Adobe Acrobat or other PDF-creation software. ■

Cataloging and saving photo negatives takes up both time and space. These days, you can find a variety of scanners on the market designed to quickly scan negatives into digital images, so you can view, edit, store and print them from a computer.


Before you start shopping, consider the following:

• Resolution. Ranges from 2,000 to 4,800 dpi, the higher the resolution, the more expensive the scanner.
• Speed. Check the start to finish scan time—not just seconds to preview. The faster the machine, the more you’ll pay for it.
• Film type. Can the scanner handle negatives larger than 33mm?
Mounted slides? Black-and-white film?
• Software. Look for software that goes beyond basic image editing
and auto-fix tools. ■

Hot Tips for Great Digital Photos

Regardless how good your printer is, the quality of its photo printing
depends on the quality of the photos themselves. Sure, you can use image editing software to enhance a photo, but that takes time, and the results are not always as good as you might like.

To ensure your digital photos are the best to start with:

• Understand your camera’s settings. Different light conditions, content types and distances should be shot with the most appropriate settings.
• Use the LCD display rather than the viewfinder to see exactly what
will appear in the picture’s frame. (The LCD may use more power,
but it is usually more accurate.)
• Shoot at maximum resolution. You’ll have more flexibility as to
how large you can print the photo later.
• Use optical rather than digital zoom (which will increase the
graininess of the photo).

Read EcoPrint News each month for timely
tips on printing and environmental news.

Great Proofing Reduces Paper Waste

If you’ve ever looked into the paper recycling bin or wastebasket near your office’s printer or copier, you know how much paper is wasted because jobs are printed with mistakes on them. In the rush to get work done, people often don’t take the time to proof their jobs properly before hitting the Print button.

Providing employees with a document-proofing checklist, and encouraging its use, could cut your office’s paper costs considerably. Here are some common problems your employees should look for:

Format Problems

• Bad line breaks and hyphenations.
• Bad page breaks.
• Widows (A word by itself on the last line of a paragraph or the first line of a page or column.)
• Orphans (A single line by itself at the top of a page or column.
• Misplaced page numbers, headers, footers, etc.
• Wrong font or type size.
• Wrong colors.
• Bad tabbing or indents.

Inaccuracies

• Wrong names, phone numbers, addresses, dates, times, captions, etc.
• Out-of-date information.
• Bad reference numbers to other pages or footnotes.
• Typos
• Misspellings—especially those a spell checker won’t catch, such as “there” for “their” or “it’s” for “its”.
• Transposed letters or numbers.
• Missing text or punctuation.
• Repeated words.

Images, Tables & Lists Errors

• Bad placement.
• Wrong size or format.
• Poor quality or readability.

The best way to add emphasis to a word or phrase in text is to:

A: Put it all capital letters.
B. Put it in italics.
C: Underline it.
D. Put it in boldface.

Despite the liberty with which advertising copy uses capital letters, underlining and bold type to grab the attention of readers, the best answer is “B”. In normal text, the long-standing, accepted typesetting practice is to emphasize words by placing them in italics. The other alternatives, being more visually arresting, tend to disrupt a smooth reading of the text, while italics conveys a sense of importance or stress on the words without jarring the reader’s eye. ■