Choosing the Right Copier for Your Office

Start with monthly volume, not speed. A machine rated far below your volume will wear out early; one rated far above it wastes capital.

Decide whether you need finishing — stapling, hole punch, booklet folding. Adding a finisher later is possible but rarely cheap.

Consider the paper sizes you truly use. Ledger capability adds cost and footprint that many offices never touch.

What this means for your office

Most of the trouble we are called out for is preventable, and much of it is cheap to prevent compared with the emergency visit it turns into. If any of the above matches what your machine is doing, note the make, model and exact wording of the message on the panel before you call — it shortens the diagnosis considerably.

When to call a technician

Call when the same fault returns after a full power cycle, when print quality degrades in a repeating pattern, or when a maintenance counter is past its rated interval. Those three signals almost always mean a worn component rather than an operating error.

Keep reading

• Copier Security: The Hard Drive Nobody Thinks About
• Toner vs. Ink: Which Belongs in Your Office
• Diagnosing Print Quality Problems by Their Pattern