FAQs

What Is The Difference Between A Digital And An Analogue Copier?

An analogue copier is the older style of copier where the image is taken from the original and using lens and mirrors, a charge is placed on the copy, which attracts toner to create the new image. Digital scans the original using an electronic process. This image is then stored digitally and reproduced onto the copy using the same technique as a laser printer.

What Is Scan Once Print Many?

In a digital copier the original is scanned into memory, and then reproduced from memory rather than being scanned once for every copy. In an analogue copier, if you were copying an original that was double sided and had 3 pages, the original document would be scanned for each set you required. This can damage the original set as well as being slower. In a digital copier the original is scanned once into memory and then sets are produced from memory. This makes every copy exactly the same as the first.

What Is Positive/Negative?

It reverses the black and white areas on an original, i.e. black background / white text can be reversed to white background / black text. This can be used when faxing a brochure with a coloured background.

What Is Margin Shift?

It is a function that moves an image on a copy to create a margin suitable for binding.

What Is Dual Page Copy?

It is used to produce individual copies of two documents placed side by side, such as the pages of a book.

What Does Sorting Do?

It sorts copies into numerical order. If you wanted 5 copies of a 10-page document, you would use this feature.

What Does Grouping Do?

It groups copies by page number. i.e. all page 1's grouped together, all page 2's grouped together, etc.

What Does The Bypass Tray Do?

It allows users to feed paper manually, without accessing the main paper tray. Used for letterheads, covers, transparencies, etc.

What Is Duplex?

It is double-sided printing or copying - This also applies to scanning.

What is Automatic Colour Sensing (ACS)

Canon’s Auto Colour Sensing System or (ACS) on the iRC range of copiers automatically detects which of your documents contain colour, and which don’t, and then prints accordingly, helping to keep costs down to a minimum.

What is it meant that I can print on SRA3 paper?

What Is Polling?

Polling allows you to let another fax machine dial your fax machine, scan and transmit a document. Like you sending without having to pay for the phone call.

What Is Broadcasting?

It allows fax(es) to be sent to multiple sites in one transaction

What Is Group Faxing?

It is similar to broadcasting, however, multiple sites can be programmed under one key, for ease of use.

What Is An ISDN Line?

It is a digital line that allows extremely fast communication. e.g. 3-second transmission speed for one A4 page.

What Is The Difference Between Group 3 & Group 4 Faxing?

Group 3 faxing is the standard faxing speed, i.e. 6 second transmission for one A4 page, however, the introduction of ISDN lines has meant that Group 4 faxing can be used with a transmission speed of 3 seconds for one A4 page, which drastically reduces running costs.

What is the difference between an ink film, an inkjet and a laser fax?

The ink film fax boasts quiet operation and high quality plain paper printing. Manufacturing costs are relatively low due to the simple design. However, because it’s one-strike ink film keeps a negative record of faxes, this type of fax is inappropriate for applications where security is a concern. Running costs are high because the thermal print heads are expensive and wear out. Print quality can vary because of poor head-to-film contact and smearing.

The inkjet fax is compact, easy to use, quiet, boasts high resolution, reasonable running costs and easy maintenance. Manufacturing costs are low and is capable of colour incorporation. However, inkjet faxes are prone to slow printing, variable print quality and nozzle clogging problems.

Laser faxes offer superb high-quality, high-speed printing on a wide range of paper. Their high performance, make the suitable for service as copiers as well. However, laser faxes are bulky and expensive to produce. The use of many consumables, a limited number of print cycles and numerous moving parts make them expensive to run and maintain.

What is the memory?

If your paper runs out over night and your still receiving fax’s, then all the incoming fax’s will go into the machines memory. When the paper is refilled then your faxes from the memory will print out.

What is an ADF?

The Automatic Document Feeder enables transmission or copying of multi page documents without having to manually place each individual page. This eliminates the need to feed pages into the fax one at a time. This speeds up operation and frees the operators to perform other tasks.

What is a flatbed fax?

A flatbed enables you to fax or copy from books or magazines. This feature is not available on all faxes and makes life easier if you have bound documents.

What is dual access?

This is a memory-based capability, which allows the fax to perform two jobs at once. You can store a document in memory while another document is being sent or received. This means that there is no need to wait around for the fax to finish the current job. Your fax is always available.

What is a multifunctional fax?

Our definition of multifunction is - a fax machine that includes the software, which enables it to print, scan and has a fax modem.

Printing

When printing an Excel spreadsheet created on a different PC, excel crashes and I get no print.

Some versions of Excel "lose" the print quality setting on document move from PC to PC. Check there is an entry in 'Print Quality' under Page settings before trying to print.

Why Does The Printer Say ‘Check Paper Size’ Or ‘Load Letter Paper’ When I Print A Document From Microsoft Word?

Check the page size in File, Page Set-up. Should be set to A4.

On a Win95 peer-to-peer network I cannot print to a network printer first thing. It will work if I restart my computer.

Check that the PC with the physical connection to the printer is powered on.

What Is An Ethernet?

It is a widely used local area network technology.

What Is Full Bleed?

It is the ability to print right to the edge of the page, without a border (applicable to colour copiers).

What Is A Local Area Network?

A network system that provides a relatively small area with high-speed data transmission at a low error rate. Examples of a LAN are Ethernet and Token Ring.

What Is A Wide Area Network?

A network which includes nodes distributed over a larger geographical area then can be served by a local area network.

What Is Postscript?

A Page Description Language developed by the American software house, Adobe Systems, which enables printers to understand sophisticated page layouts.

What Is Token Ring?

Token Ring was mainly developed by IBM. It is a ring topology that uses the token passing method.

What is Borderless Printing?

Borderless printing allows you to print edge-to-edge images at the touch of a button. It is ideal for printing photos and flyers and you can print onto media from 4 x 6 to A4 and A3. You will find this feature on low to mid-range Canon printers and above.

What Is Vivid Photo Technology?

Vivid Photo is one of the latest imaging processing functions to be added to Canon’s printers. It allows the user to optimise their images and will enhance natural colours such as the blues of skies and seas, and the greens of tree’s and grass. This is all with a single click within the printer driver.

Dpi Resolution – How does it affect the Quality?

All printers on the market will have a dpi rating. This rating relates to the quality of the prints you will receive. If a printer quotes a resolution of ‘2400 x 1200 dpi’ then that means it will produce that many ‘dots per inch’. The higher the ‘dpi’ the better the quality will be.

Single Inks – What are the Benefits?

Inkjet printers utilise four different colours to print; Black, Cyan, Magenta and Yellow. Most printer manufacturers use ‘sealed’ toner cartridges, which means that as soon as one colour runs out, you have to throw away the cartridge resulting in a lot of wastage.

With ‘Separate Ink Tanks’ each colour is provided in its own individual tank and when it is empty you simply replace that colour which means no wastage at all. Most Canon printers use ‘Separate Ink Tanks’ which means that the cost of ownership is lower than that of a lot of their competitors.

What is the difference between USB and Parallel Connections?

Most desktop printers use either Parallel or USB (Universal Serial Bus) connections. There are benefits to using both of these connections, although USB is considered the more versatile and ‘capable’ of the two. Some differences are:

• USB will transport data more quickly than Parallel and is therefore used for applications that use bigger file sizes and for ‘photographic’ printers.
• Some low power consumption products can also be powered via the USB Cable and therefore do not need a mains cable.
• USB devices can be inter-connected by the cable (up to a maximum of 256)
• Many older PC’s or Workstations do not have USB connectivity so would need to connect via a Parallel port.
• You cannot use a USB device with Windows 95 or NT4 operating systems.