Whatever Happened to the Paperless Office?

Technology forecasters have long been predicting the day when business favors digital transmission and storage. Although we certainly have embraced digital communications for memos, letters, presentations, etc., paper documents are still an important part of the picture.

One study, conducted by Ivey Business Consulting Group for Lexmark Canada Inc., found that employees working in large Canadian companies printed an average of 50 pages per day. In the corporate environment, 67% of all the information employees created was eventually printed, and about 40% of corporate employees printed correspondence received electronically.

The study found that employees at small- and medium-sized companies printed an average 35 pages per person daily and 60% of the information they created. Nearly 25% of these employees printed everything they receive electronically. Printing may not always be the preferred form of communication these days, but it is well suited to archiving. Can you still retrieve documents that were printed.

While a well-run data-management program converts old electronic files, when systems are upgraded, files can be lost or corrupted in the process. By contrast, once a document is printed and stored properly, it remains accessible to anyone who understands the filing system—a pretty good long-term back-up system, all things considered.

We believe office printing will continue to be a useful, valuable technology for years to come. Our goal is to help our customers use printing machines in the most efficient and economical ways possible. Give us a call! ■

Pixels: The Building Blocks Of Digital Images

Although we often talk about pixels in relation to digital images, many folks don’t really understand what pixels are or how they work. Here’s a short course.

Pixel is short for “picture element”—the basic building block of digital images. A pixel is simply a square or rectangular box containing information that, when combined with other closely spaced information-laden pixels, forms a complete image. It’s an optical illusion based on the mind’s ability to create a unified visual form out of closely allied parts.

In good-quality, high-resolution images, individual pixels aren’t visible because there are so many of them so close together. The fewer the pixels used to record an image, the less definition the image has and the more noticeable the pixels become.

It takes lots of pixels to create the optical illusion of an image. A fairly low-resolution digital camera might record information in 640 pixels horizontally by 480 pixels vertically (640x460). Those two numbers can be multiplied together to summarize the camera’s resolution capability—the total number of pixels recorded per image. Thus, a 640x460 image would have just over 307,000 pixels.

Counting pixels in the hundreds of thousands gets awkward, which is why cameras and images are defined in “megapixels.” (“Mega” means million in Greek.) So a camera capable of taking a 307,000-pixel image would be called a 0.3MP camera. A camera that can take a 1600x1200 pixel image would be described as a 1.92MP camera (1600x1200=1,920,000;
1,920,000÷1,000,000=1.92). ■

Compatible printer cartridges produce the same quality of prints as OEM cartridges but at a much lower price.

Answer: If you said “true” you’re right—partly. The compatible cartridges we sell really do yield the kind of print quality you would expect from original equipment manufacturer (OEM) brands, and at a significant savings. That cannot be said for all compatible cartridges, however. Many compatible supplies just don’t do the job and may cost less, the same or more than ours. Price is not always an indicator of quality.

Feel free to compare our cartridges with those sold by other companies. We think you’ll find that ours provide the best value both in terms of quality and cost. And, of course, we guarantee them! ■

Among the benefits of having a higher-end printer is being able to use features that reduce paper, ink and toner usage—not to mention saving time. If your printers don’t offer the following options, you may want to consider upgrading—the savings could cover your costs!

• N-Up printing allows you to print more than one page on a single sheet. Being able to print two pages to 16 pages (16-up) on one side of a page cuts costs while minimizing storage-space requirements.

• Duplex printing lets you to print on both sides of a page without flipping and reloading sheets—saving paper and time.

• Proof printing capability allows you to send a multiple-copy job to the printer, but lets you take a look at and approve just one page before the rest of the job proceeds.

People who use mobile computing technologies—handhelds, laptops, notebooks, etc.—are increasingly looking for ways to print directly from their devices, rather than downloading to their office-networked PCs first. The printing industry has taken notice.

Today’s office printers are incorporating devices that allow you to print direct, either by using a USB port or by sending jobs through infrared or Bluetooth transfer.

If you or your coworkers are looking for easier, faster ways to get your documents to paper, give us a call. We can explain in detail about all the options now available on today’s printing machines that could save you time, money and hassles.Let us know what your printing needs are and we’ll find the perfect machines to meet them! ■

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