Find the Right Copy Printers in Fairbanks, Alaska

When choosing an office printer, multifunctionality for things like printing, copying, scanning, and faxing are pretty much a given; if you handle documents, then having all of these functions on your office printer is a basic necessity. But a modern copy printer in Fairbanks, AK, won’t do just those 4 things. Most will come with any number of additional features that can improve efficiency, security, and overall productivity. However, just as not everyone benefits from all the potential add-ons a new car might offer, not every business is going to benefit from every bell and whistle on a printer. How do you know which add-on features are worth the extra cost for your business? Here’s a guide that may help. 

Duplex Printing

Duplex printing, sometimes referred to by the more obvious name of automatic double-sided printing, is a big paper saver. It instantly cuts your paper consumption in half, reducing your supply costs and contributing to your business’s sustainability. It can also improve efficiency when handling large print jobs, since you don’t have to manually flip pages over.

Since most businesses are printing multi-page documents on a regular basis, this function is usually worth the added cost, simply because of the paper it saves.

Higher-Resolution Printing

High-resolution printers produce sharper, more professional-looking documents, which is particularly important for companies that print marketing materials or other client-facing documents that are heavy in graphics and images. Every image will be sharper and clearer, which is a good look for any business trying to maintain an air of professionalism.

If your company prints a lot of image-heavy documents, then a printer with a higher resolution (measured in DPI) is probably a good investment. However, if you only print internal memos or text-based documents, a standard resolution is usually enough.

Advanced Security Features

In a business world that’s increasingly digitized, security features can be an important feature to consider. This can include things like user authentication, encrypted printing, and secure document release to prevent unauthorized access to sensitive information.

Any business that handles confidential information—for example, law firms, healthcare providers, and financial firms—should invest in a printer with very robust security features. Even small businesses can benefit greatly from these kinds of features by preventing data breaches. In fact, this is one category that we can confidently say is worth the investment for every business.

Wireless and Mobile Printing

Not too long ago, businesses required employees to lock away their mobile devices when reporting for work as a standard operating procedure. Now, however, more and more companies are realizing that their employees’ cell phones can be used in the office as an important business tool. Wireless printing allows employees to print from their smartphones, as well as laptops and tablets, without being tethered to a specific workstation.

If your office employs anything more mobile than desktop computers, wireless printing is worth the investment. This way, employees can pick up their laptops, take them to a meeting, and print out the notes from that meeting without needing a physical connection to the printer. However, if you have a more traditional office setup with fixed desktop computers, this feature might be a lower priority.

Multi-User and Network Capability

The vast majority of office printers are used by more than one person. A network-enabled printer allows multiple users to send print jobs from different devices, which improves workflow and reduces downtime.

Again, this is one area where we feel confident saying that your business would benefit from having it built into your printer. Odds are, more than a single person will need to print documents somewhere down the line, so invest in this feature with the confidence it will help you. The only exception is if you’re looking for a printer to use in a private office, where nobody else will be connecting to and printing from it.

Larger Paper Capacity

Printers can be equipped with paper trays that have a large capacity, and even multiple print trays in some cases. This reduces how often you need to refill the paper tray, and allows your business to print on different paper types without manual adjustments.

If your office prints in high volumes, or if you use different paper types on a regular basis (e.g., legal-sized paper, envelopes, etc.), then this feature is a great time-saver. If you don’t have high print volume in your office and only use standard office-size paper, you might not need either of these features.

ADF and Duplex Scanning

An automatic document feeder, or ADF, allows multi-page scanning, copying, and faxing without manually feeding your document into the machine page by page. Duplex scanning, similar to duplex printing, captures both sides of a document automatically, improving the efficiency of scanning double-sided documents.

If your office handles a high volume of paperwork, particularly of multi-page documents, you’ll likely benefit greatly from this feature. After all, do you really want someone to spend their time standing at the printer and feeding documents page by page? If scanning and copying isn’t frequent in your office, a flatbed scanner might be enough for you.

Finishing Options

Modern printers can offer a variety of finishing options, including stapling, hole punching, and even booklet making. These kinds of built-in options can streamline document organization, so that you don’t need to be manually stapling, punching, and/or binding documents into packets.

If these kinds of “finishing” tasks are common in your office for things like reports, proposals, or marketing booklets, then having the features built into your printer will save a lot of time and improve the professionalism of your documents. If, however, you don’t tend to staple, hole punch, or bind your papers very often, it might not be worth the extra cost.

So, if you’re ready to buy a copier in Fairbanks, AK, be sure to consider all of these add-ons and whether or not they’ll be worth the extra cost to have them on your printer. If you’re not sure about which features you want added to your machine, feel free to stop by Arctic Office Products to take a look at our floor models and speak to an associate about the functions that matter most to you.