All singing all dancing technology – multifunction printers can do it all

From its humble beginnings as a stand-alone, noisy device sitting in the corner of the office and churning out ream after ream of paper, the printer has come a very long way. Far from being a mere tool for producing basic printed documents, the modern printer often combines the functions of two, three or more essential office devices into one compact frame. Today's multifunction printer can happily print documents, photos and even posters in colour or black and white, can scan images or text straight onto your computer, and can copy documents and even email directly from a scan, aping the now largely defunct fax machine.

Many people assume that because of all the features a multifunction printer incorporates, its core functionality must in some way suffer. If this was ever the case in the past, it certainly isn't now and today's multifunction printers are just as capable in terms of quality and printing speed as their single-purpose cousins. The best multifunction printers can print in excess of 52 pages per minute in monochrome – that's nearly one every second – making them the equal of any enterprise-level standalone printers.

Modern multifunction printers also include high quality scanner units that allow users to make a digital copy of any printed page, whether it is a photograph, letter, contract or a page in a book. Scanning at resolutions up to 1200x1200 dots per inch, it's easy to make near perfect scans of important documents to be backed up digitally, archived on the computer, edited or emailed to friends, family and co-workers.

It's even possible to combine the functionality of the printer and scanner elements of your multifunction printers to copy documents directly in much the same way as a standalone office photocopier or Xerox machine. You can scan individual pages by lifting the copier's lid, ideal for making copies of signed letters and pages from important documents like passports or drivers licenses. Alternatively, try loading a multipage document such as a report or contract into the page feeding tray and watch as the multifunction printer makes a perfect copy and puts all the pages into the correct order.

Perhaps the least appreciated of the multifunction printer's features is its ability to digitally send a copy of any document scanned instantaneously by email. This allows you to get important documents to where they need to be immediately without having to worry about finding the file on your computer and attaching it to an email. To a large extent, digital sending has signalled the final nail in the coffin of the venerable fax machine, although some advanced multifunction printers are available with an optional fax.

Some multifunction printers go even further and include features previously confined to high-end office photocopiers such as advanced paper handling, which allows you to do everything from stapling multipage documents to inserting printed pages into envelopes automatically.

About the Author

Paul Buchanan writes for a digital marketing agency. This article has been commissioned by a client of said agency. This article is not designed to promote, but should be considered professional content.