SCANNER

A scanner is a peripheral device which enables to digitalise documents It is the perfect instrument to transform your souvenirs and written papers into digital documents that time wont wait for Some scanners are capable of digitalizing any type of document others are destined for specific formats from the most common to the most particular such as business card scanners all in one printer,buy printer,buy scanner,cannon printers,cheap printer,cheap printer ink,cheap scanners,colour laser printer,computer scanner,digital printing,discount printers,ink cartridges,inkjet,inkjet printers,office supplies,printer cartridge There exist a scanner for every use but there will be necessarily one which will be the connection between yourself and your computer

Sheetfed scanner

The sheetfed scanner is uniquely capable to digitalise sheet per sheet It is enough to put your sheet into a feeder or directly into an opening for it to appear just a few seconds later unto your screen This type of scanner is very compact but very limited in its usage In fact it has a tendency to disappear

Flat scanner

The flat scanner is the most common type of scanner It can digitalise all types of documents of different sizes more often A4 but there also exists A3 scanners To digitalise your document you just need to place it against the devices screen Today many flat scanners propose in option a back for your transparencies This option allows you to digitalise all types of transparent documents including documents on film transparencies and negatives 24x36 films You got it this is currently the type of scanner the most polyvalent available

Film scanner

First and foremost destined for professionals the film scanner is specialised in the digitalisation of 24x36 negatives or APS It can achieve very high resolutions and its quality is excellent but its use domain is very restricted

Other types of scanners exist even more specific such as business card scanners useful when you have a large batch of contacts to manage barcode scanners or pen scanners allowing you to digitalise a single line of text at a time

Colour sampling depth is the number of colour gradation that the scanner is capable of dissociating The higher their number the better the colour gradation will be restored and the more your document will be faithfully restituted .Nowadays scanners propose different types of interfaces sometimes even simultaneously You must of course have the appropriate port in question on your computer The parallel port is the most widely used interface on scanners and printers for several years It is today phasing out taken over by USB Universal Serial Bus which offers superior performances and a reduced processors resources usage As with most actual peripherals scanners can connect to your computer via a USB port Very fast and practical to use this interface is also compatible to both PC and Mac and certain scanners can be even fed electricity wise directly from the USB port Destined above all for professional and work stations the SCSI interface has the lowest processor resources consumption These types of scanners are becoming rarer and are often top of the range models The programs delivered with the scanner are classified primarily into two large categories The provided versions are usually lighter versions of the commercial software which cost several hundreds of pounds They are good enough for small works but can appear more limited for an advanced editing Also named OCR it is a major advantage of scanners Thanks to this software they can read a text image and transform it into a classical text document while keeping pagesetting the images and illustrations of the original document Today the rate of recognition nears 100% but some small manual improvements may be sometimes necessary Some scanners are pretty and slim others austere and massif Some are equipped with buttons in frontage which make it possible to automate certain tasks such as for example the launching of a photocopy or a digitalization by the simple touch of a button others can also function whilst maintained vertically Depending on the main use of your scanner it may be appealing to look into these kinds of annexed functionalities

LASER PRINTER

A laser printer tends to be faster than an inkjet and while toner cartridges for laser printer are more expensive than ink they last a lot longer Laser printers generally give clearer and sharper text reproduction and may be better for handling envelopes cards and nonstandard paper sizes This may vary for the different elements but in the case of the copier printer and scanner the key measurement is dots per inch DPI Simply put the higher the DPI the greater the detail that is likely to be reproduced DPI may vary for black and colour printing Additional proprietary technologies may be used by individual manufacturers to improve resolution Maximum black and white printing resolutions on inkjet printers vary from 600x600 DPI to 1200x6000 DPI .There is a reasonably close correlation between the low price of some machines and their high running costs that means that some machines are not the bargains they might at first seem A higherpriced machine with a lower running cost in terms of ink cartridges is likely to pay for itself pretty quickly Comparing costs can be difficult but will save you significant amounts on even average usage

INKJET PRINTER

The original advantage of the inkjet printer was that it could reproduce colour when only very expensive laser options could That price differential has all but disappeared but inkjet technology can now produce photographic quality outputs Print speeds and text quality can be lower than laserbased versions and running costs can be considerably higher An inkjet is the right choice for allround use These with monochrome printers most common among laserprinter types may well have colour scanners but are only able to print in black and white Most inkjet printer are able to print in colour and black and white but some cheaper inkjet printers can print both but not at the same time If you want to print a page which contains black and white text and colour images you will need an inkjet printer with four colours The higher the bitdepth of a scanner the higher the quality of the scan Most colour scanners are 24bit and collect 8 bits of information about each of the three primary colours red green and blue This gives excellent quality Scanners with 30 or 36 bits are also available They require printer memory to store and process information while printing Measured in megabytes MB the more memory the device has the faster it will print Allows you to transfer images from the memory card in a digital camera directly to a compatible allinone without a computer or editing software Print size and layout can be set using the controls and the LCD on the camera PictBridge is becoming the standard for digital image transfers and replacing proprietary solutions Faxes can be sent either directly from your computer or by printing a document and feeding it through to send Will store faxes sent to you when machine is not in use Usually supplied with the software for the machine a printer driver controls the communication between your computer and the allinone Updates to drivers are commonly made available from the manufacturers web sites Sometimes called duplex mode means you can print doublesided documents Print speeds usually expressed in pages per minute for allinones will vary so if they are going to be important to you you should compare competing models Most models on the market will print between 20 and 25 black and white pages per minute Colour pages will take longer depending on the quality selected

MULTIFUNCTIONAL PRINTERS

Multifunctional printers also known as allinone printers can print characters and graphic images and can also copy and scan documents Most models include USB and or parallel interfaces for connection to a computer higherend models may also include network interfaces Some allinone devices feature memory card slots LCD graphic displays and duplex printing and can send and receive fax documents as well. Multifunction printers are primarily used to print and fax Scanning and copying are no less important but theyre less often needed You shouldnt expect any multifunction printer to compare to the pageasecond quality printer or copiers commonly found in a company office Though every multifunction printer has it perks Price ranges for allinone multifunction printers general depend on total functions speed and print quality Depending on your home or business usage a multifunction printer can be the best solution for you With the rise in home based business and self employed individuals a multifunction printer can greatly help your efficiency

Allinone printers that can print color documents at 31 ppm and 4 x 6inch color prints in 14 seconds provided you use HP Advanced photo paper

Laser printers are the office workhorse but only inkbased multifunction can juggle spreadsheets for work and print pictures for play

Multifunction printers not only make great gifts themselves theyre also handy for decorating gifts planning parties and sending seasonal greetings

Printing Quality
Yes Multifunction printers can have the same if not better quality than there traditional printer counterpart It all depends on the investment you wish to make in multifunction printer

Popular manufacturers of Multifunction Printers
There are many quality manufacturers of multifunction printers but some of the best selling is Brother Canon Dell Epson HewlettPackard Konica Minolta Kyocera Lexmark Okidata Olivetti Ricoh Sharp Toshiba and Xerox

DOT MATRIX PRINTERS

Dot matrix printers use a set of closely spaced pins and a ribbon to print letters or other characters on a page Dot matrix printers operate much like a typewriter unlike laser printers or inkjet printers these impact the page to print a character This allows you to print through multipart forms rather than just printing on the top sheet

Dot matrix printers are used for printing invoices purchase orders shipping forms labels and other multipart forms Dot matrix printers can print through multipart forms in a single pass allowing them to produce more pages than even highspeed laser printers

You may already have a budget in mind as to how much you would like to spend Dot Matrix printers range from Rs 6 235 to Rs 1 72 695

This refers to the actual number of small metal pins on the printer head which strike on the ribbon and then on the paper to print a character A printer can have either 9 metal pins or 24 metal pins The print resolution of the printout taken by a 29pin printer is higher as compared to the one taken by a 9pin print head If you are very keen on quality print outs the 24pin dot matrix is a good option

Print speed
Print speed is the number of copies of paper or any other print media that the printer is capable of printing per minute Remember that print speeds vary with different modes of colour different settings of print quality and different sizes of paper Draft quality mode is an economical mode which does not give you an excellent quality output and hence prints faster than the letter quality mode This is fine for printing internal documents and taking print outs where quality of the type is not so important If you need to use the printer only for text purposes then speed is an important factor to consider Here the speed is mentioned in terms of A4 size paper normal letterhead size Draft quality 12 cpi prints in a bigger font size but takes longer to print than Draft quality 10 cpi Letter quality mode gives betterlooking printouts but is slower as compared to the draft quality mode

The extra fast speed More than 401 cps Draft Mode is for only text printouts and the Fast speed of 251 to 400 cps as well as the regular speed of 250 cps and below is for black and white text and graphics

Printing copies
This refers to the number of carbon copies the printer can print of the original This feature eliminates the need to manually keep giving print commands and is a very good option for people who generally require taking multiple copies of documents You can take the right decision depending upon the number of carbon copies you would normally require taking of documents

Print size
This refers to the number of columns a printer can print on a paper Dotmatrix printers offer two options 136 columns and 80 columns The choices depend upon your needs If you require printing large reports and worksheets you obviously need a 132column printer whereas if your output requirements are never going to be larger than a4 legal you can do with an 80column printer

INKJET PRINTERS

Printers use different technology to print Inkjet printers use a technology in which the ink slides on the paper in a manner similar to ink pen on paper Bubble jet technology uses ink bubbles for printing In piezoelectric technology the ink in the ink chamber is first charged before it is transferred on the paper Thermal inkjet printer uses heat to transfer an impression onto paper

You may already have a budget in mind as to how much you would like to spend Inkjet printers range from Rs 2 995 to Rs 35 000 depending upon the print speed and the print resolution

Print speed
Print speed is the number of copies of paper or any other print media that a printer is capable of printing per minute Printer speeds vary with different modes of colour different settings of print quality and different sizes of paper Remember that black text printing is faster than colour printing and graphics printing

Extra Fast 11 or more prints If you use the printer only for text purposes

Fast 7 to 10 prints Normal 7 or less prints For a graphics designer where the quality of printout is of importance

Print resolution
Resolution is the number of dots printed per inch dpi on paper and the more the dots per inch the sharper and clearer is the image and hence better is the quality of the print If you are buying a printer especially for printing brochures or posters he needs to look at the maximum resolution
It is recommended that a highresolution figure should not form the basis of your buying decision you need to actually see the printouts from the machine you intend to buy All manufacturers provide print samples on request and this will let you determine the effectiveness of the resolution Only by seeing the results of this kind will you be able to make a fair judgment

Maximum paper size
The maximum paper size is the largest size of paper the printer can print on or the maximum size of paper the printer can accommodate in the roller for printing This is a feature to be considered if your work requires you to print on a variety of paper sizes To give you a rough idea an A4 normal letterhead size paper measures 11 75inches x 8 25inches an A3 sized paper measures 16 50 inches x 11 75 inches

LASER PRINTERS

The inkjet and dotmatrix printers with their slow as turtle speeds had many people tearing their hair out When laser printers came along they truly simplified lives and goes without saying multiplied productivity

So how do you go about buying this musthave for your office SOHO The first criterion is the budget how featurerich the printer is will depend on how much you are willing to spend on it

You may already have a budget in mind as to how much you would like to spend Laser printers range from Rs 4 500 to Rs 3 09 999 depending upon the print speed and the print resolution This includes both monochrome as well as colour printers Monochrome laser printer starts from the price range of Rs 4 500 to Rs 228 000 whereas colour laser printers range from Rs 6 900 to Rs 3 09 999 The capacity also affects the price Naturally the highend ones will have a larger print capacity than the entry or midlevel printers

You also need to know the key factors that affect the price of the printer This will help you take a call on the features and capabilities you want your printer to have

Like in inkjet printers laser printers too have two types – monochrome and colour The monochrome is much less expensive so if your work doesnt require colour printouts then this is your ideal choice Colour printers on the other hand are expensive but are absolutely essential for those who deal with graphics or require colour printouts of presentations etc The print quality is really good

The other important aspect you need to consider when choosing a printer is the resolution The resolution of a printer refers to its sharpness and clarity and hence is an important determinant of its quality Printer resolution the sharpness of text and images on paper is usually measured in dots per inch dpi Most inexpensive printers provide sufficient resolution for most purposes at 600 dpi Higher resolution 1200 dpi and above offers better quality graphics and image sharpness

Basic Resolution 600X600 dpi and below
Extra fast more than 35 sheets per minute for text printing or black and white graphics printing

High Resolution 1200X1200 dpi and above
Fast between 21 and 35 sheets per minute or Regular Less than 20 sheets per minute for high quality colour printouts like brochures and posters you can compromise on speed

Here it must be noted that black and white printing is faster than colour printing and graphics printing It is advisable to not just buy on the basis of a highresolution figure if possible try taking a printout from the machine you want to buy All manufacturers provide print samples on request and this will let you determine the effectiveness of the resolution