Multifunctional Devices A-Z List
Multifunctional Devices A-Z List
- All-In-Ones
All-in-Ones are also known as multifunctional devices (MFD's). An All-in-One system performs multiple functions in a in a single machine. Thus, copying, faxing, scanning, and printing become centralized, offering greater control and efficiency.
- Analogue Process
This original process for creating a photocopy used a lens situated beneath the platen glass and literally took a picture of the document to be copied.This picture was transferred to a drum which was charged electro statically and the toner (black powder) was designed to attach itself to the charged areas of the drum to form the imageAs the drum rotated the image was transferred onto paper and sealed into place via a heated roller. This was a largely mechanical process and manipulation of the image required complex lens arrangements and considerable amounts of space within the machine.
- Audit Feature
Also known as Copy Audit, this feature allows you to control or monitor users copy/print volumes by requiring the user to input a designated departmental or user identifying code via the machine keypad, in order to access the facilities of the machine.
- Automatic Document Feeder (ADF)
An ADF enables you to make copies without lifting the platen. You load the set of original documents into the feeder, press start, and let the copier move each sheet on and off the platen. Thus instead of placing each sheet one-by-one onto the glass, the ADF reduces time and monotony. A typical ADF can hold between 1 and 20 sheets at a time.
- Break Fix
A supplier service model designed to respond to service calls as they are placed by the customer
- Bypass Tray
A bypass tray reduces the risk of a paper jam by offering an alternative short, straight-paper path. It thus enables you to copy straight onto originals - such as coloured paper, odd-sized paper, or card stock i.e. materials which cannot be fed (or are inconvenient or impossible to feed) from the regular copy paper tray inside a the copier. Bypass trays can handle anywhere from one to 100 sheets. A popular use is in colour copiers for printing onto stiff covers or transparencies. Bypass trays that can hold more than one sheet are called stackable bypass trays.
- Catch Tray
Catch trays collect the completed copies which emerge from the copy machine.
- Consumables
Items that every so often need to be replaced are known as consumables. These would include the toner, paper, fuser oil, developer, or any other materials or parts that must be regularly replaced.
- Control Panel
The control panel is the area where you find all the control functions for the photocopier. Nowadays, the control panel is a sophisticated LCD display with easy-to-follow instructions. These guide the user through such variables as number of copies required, paper size, copy reduction, or copy enlargement.
- Convenience Copying
"Convenience copying" is simply the act of using the scanning function in a fax machine to make a quick copy.
- Copier Counter
A useful management tool, the Copier Counter keep a numerical record of the number of copies produced. Sometimes they are not easy to find, but a quick look under the platen glass can usually reveal it. Copies Per Minute (CPM) Copies Per Minute is a value expressed by the number of 8 1/2 x 11 inch pages a digital copier can produce per minute. These days, colour copiers list four CPM speeds. These are for black and white, one-colour, two-colour, and four-colour copies.
- CPC
Cost per copy (Also seen as CPP - Cost per Print) is the traditional method of paying for the service and consumable elements of a photocopier contractUnlike printers which are traditionally serviced via an annually paid maintenance contract and where the provision of toner cartridges is the responsibility of the users - the service, toner and other consumable parts needed by a MFD are provided by the service provider via a fixed cost for every copy/print produced by the machine.
- Cost of Ownership
Consumables such as paper and toner, as well as service contracts are all part of the price equation when considering a new digital copier. This is called the (Total) Cost of Ownership, and it determines the actual total cost to budget for when buying copy machines.
- Desktop Copier
Still a popular choice especially in the small business environment, or where space is at a premium, a Desktop Copier sits easily on a desktop or table.
- Digital Copying
All colour photocopiers copiers currently available on the market use digital technology. This is a copying technology which works in the same way as a scanner, by breaking up the image into dots and rows. This is in total contrast to analog copiers which work in the same way as a camera, taking a picture of the document to be copied via a lens.
- Duplex Copying
Duplex is another word for automatically copying on both sides of a page. Duplex copying is best achieved by adding to a copier a document feeder called a recirculating automatic document feeder (RADF), which can handle two-sided originals. This is the best way to avoid the paper jams often associated with two-sided copying.
- Editing Features
These days, many colour copiers have a wide range of editing features, which enable the user to move the image, change the colours, or adjust colours to match the original after creating the copy.
- Electronic Recirculating Document Handler (ERDH)
An EDRH is a copy machine which is able to do the following: copy two-sided original documents, handle originals only once when making copies, and automatically sort output copies. Also called a duplex digital document scanner.
- Electronic Sorting
This method of sorting means that copies can be collated without the use of sorter bins. This is achieved by outputting cach collated set horizontally, then vertically in alternate sequence.
- First-Copy Speed
This is the indicator which defines how quickly a photocopier can print the initial page of a document. This is useful to know if your business is using the copier on a walk-up-and-use basis, since most people only copy one or two sheets at a time, and are keen to complete the job in quick time.
- Four-Colour Printing
Most copiers these days use four-colour printing. Four colour printing uses cyan, magenta, yellow, and black to create all colours of the spectrum. Four colour printing is also referred to as CMYK printing.
- Full Bleed
An image that covers right to the edge of a sheet with no borders or margins. Typically you must print on a larger sheet and then trim the page.
- Full Colour
Machines capable of producing full colour photographic quality on high gloss paper.
- Large Format Copier
Photocopiers and MFD's categorized as Large Format include those designed for A2 media and larger.
- Ledger-Sized Paper
Paper sheets measuring 11 x 17 inches.
- Legal-Sized Paper
Paper sheets measuring 8 1/2 x 14 inches.
- Letter-Sized Paper
Paper sheets measuring 8 1/2 x 11 inches.
- Machine Downtime
The amount of hours and minutes in a month the photocopier is unable to be used because it is waiting to be repaired
- Machine Uptime
The amount of hours and minutes in a month that the photocopier is actually working without fault. This is normally expressed as a percentage of the normal working hours in a month. Eg 97% uptime(For example, with 62 days in a quarter with an average working pattern of 8.5 hours per day, all primary functions are required to be available for over 511 hours out of 527 hours covered.)
- Maximum Monthly Volume
Maximum Monthly Volume is maximum number of pages copy machines designed to produce each month. This figure tends to err on the high side in manufacturers specifications, with few photocopiers copiers ever hitting their monthly maximum in the real-world environment. Similar to MPG figures on cars, the Maximum Monthly Volume is useful as a comparison figure rather than an absolute.
- Memory
In the same way as a PC uses memory, so also does a photocopier machine. Memory is simply a hardware component that stores data. A digital copier needs memory to perform things such as scanning documents, using scan once/print many, or faxing. The required amount of memory depends on which function is used.
- Monochrome
Neat term for Black and white.
- Moving Platen
The lower-priced desktop copiers often have moving platens, meaning the top of the copier moves backwards and forwards across the document placed in the machine to be copied.
- Multifunctional Device (MFD)
You no longer need to think in terms of separate devices for fax, scanning and copying. You can now think in terms of which Multifunctional Device (or MFD) or product (MFP) best suits your office and business requirements. An MFD is defined as a machine which can perform one other function in addition to faxing and convenience copying - often copying or scanning, or printing. An MFD is also referred to as an all-in-one.
- N-Up Printing
The applications on a Multi Function Product allows you to copy/print several images onto a single sheet. Normally used to reduce paper usage and space required for archiving hard copy documents.
- Office Colour
A mono machine able to produce spot colour of less quality than full colour in one pass. This type of machine would be used to provide highlight colour in your documents without incurring the higher cost of full colour.
- OHC Mode
OHC mode enables colour photocopiers to copy onto transparencies. This mode runs more slowly than usual colour copying to ensure the toner has time to fuse into the plastic transparency sheets.
- Page printer
These devices process and produce a document one page at a time. In effect each page counts as a first page; this is why first page out times are important when considering the specification of equipment.
- Paper Supply
Paper supply defines the set of trays and holders which enable a copier to work with different sizes or types of paper automatically.
- PC Copier Segment
This often defines the range of low-end Includes copiers with speeds between one and 12 copies per minute and Maximum Monthly Volume of up to 1,000 copies.
- Platen
The glass area on which original documents are placed to be copied. Sometimes the word is also used to refer to the cover that moves back and forth over the platen glass.
- PMI
Preventative Maintenance Intervals; As digital technology takes over we may find the more 'intelligent' equipment will be better suited to this model in the future
- Proportional Zoom
The Proportional Zoom function shrinks or enlarges the length and width of a page, each independently of the other. This reduces the white space that can surround copies of reduced pages. Also referred to as independent x and y axis zoom or anamorphic zoom.
- Raster Image Processor (RIP)
Another word for a Print Controller. The RIP is used to attach a copier to a computer network to convert colour files into printing instructions for the copier. Also known as a colour server or print controller.
- Recirculating Automatic Document Feeder (RADF)
The RADF is an automatic document feeder that can automatically turn the document over to copy on its reverse side. If you only have an automatic document feeder (ADF), you can copy a two-sided document, but the copies will be on two different sheets of paper. Copiers must have a duplex unit installed for the RADF to work properly.
- Reduction/Enlargement
Many lower-specification photocopiers have simple preset settings for reduction and enlargement of copies. Higher-spec machines enable you to zoom in as closely or as far out as you need.
- Remote Diagnostics
This is a system that links to your phone line and can call the provider's technical support team if a problem arises. This means that problems can be analyzed and understood in detail, and so improve repair time and ensure that maintenance schedules are followed correctly and recorded properly.
- Saddle stitching
Staples automatically inserted into the centre fold of a booklet - would normally be part of a booklet making process that would include folding.
- Scan to file
Digital equipment utilises 'scan to print'technology to produce the print, however, the destination of the scanned copy can be sent to a PC, central archive, and print room etc. providing the equipment has a network connectionThe mailbox function within the equipment enables you to configure numerous 'destination addresses' that can be accessed at the touch of a button
- Scan Once/Print many
By holding a scanned image of the original document in its memory, a copier can then produce additional copies without the need to handle the original again. Users can leave the copier, taking the originals away while the job is being completed.
- Service Contract
The signed agreement between you and a provide selling you a copier, that specifies the arrangements for repair and routine service and maintenance for the copier.
- Sorter
The Sorter is a set of horizontal bins near the output tray of a photocopier which enable the collation of pages in the order\that they emerge from the machine. Some sorters, called sorter/staplers, can also automatically staple the collated sets of documents.
- Stackless Duplexing
A type of duplex copying that keeps the original document as an image in memory and not physically in a tray. Thus, rather than keeping a stack of one-sided copies until the copier is ready to copy on to the second sides, stackless duplexing allows you to make as many double-sided copies as you need, without being limited to the number of sheets a duplexing tray can hold at a time. Also referred to as trayless duplexing.
- Stationary Platen
These days, all but the most basic PC-segment copiers are equipped with a stationary platen. The top of the copier does not move back and forth across the document to be copied.
- Toner Coverage
Normally expressed as a percentage, for example, cost per page at 8.75% coverage.What is 8.75% coverage? The industry standard measurement for this is simple, if you could combine all of the printed characters on a page of print into a single solid black block, then the area of that block is compared to the total printable area of the page, in the above example the resultant black block would cover 8.75% of the page.As the percentage coverage increases the yield of the toner cartridge reduces, which results in an increase in the cost per print if you do not have a 'toner inclusive' contract
- Warm-Up Time
The larger the model, the longer the warm-up time. The warm up time is defined as the amount of time between when a photocopier is switched on and when it can begin the first job.
- Yield
The Yield is defined as the number of copies a particular consumable (toner, developer) can support. The Yield for toner for example, can be calculated by estimating the number of copies made per month and the amount used per page.
- Zoom
The Zoom function enables you to reduce or enlarge copies within a certain percentage range. These days, digital copiers can zoom as high 800 percent and reduce as low as 25%.