Yearly Archives: 2019

Are you using your photocopier to it’s FULL potential?

So the little workhorse that sits in the corner of your room today has more potential than you may think, a lot of suppliers forget to mention some of the little handy features these machines have, from printing banners, to sending faxes to an email addresses. Today, we are here to give you 5 great features you never knew your photocopier had!

Banner Printing

Did you know it is possible to print pages larger than A3 on your photocopier? Many manufacturers these day’s supply a feature called “Banner Printing” Taking a very long landscaped image (Similar to the one below) and being able to print this via the machines bypass tray.

Fax Forwarding

With the modern office moving away from older technologies such as fax and moving towards a more digital path many companies still receive documentation via a fax machine or option placed on their photocopier, with many devices there is a feature where you can divert the fax from being printed to be sent as a JPEG/PDF to a specified to a network folder or email address within the company. Helping reduce waste and energy.

Watermarks 

What if we told you that your photocopier can print letter-headed paper for you? Save money on having headed paper printed by a third party printers by doing them yourself, with features such as “Watermarks” you can use them for more than just overlaying text like “Copyright” or “Confidential” and instead add your own overlay images to the pages.

Custom Home Screens (One touch short cuts) 

Many modern printers use “Smart” panels these days looking very similar to your Android or Apple devices, giving more functionality by moving the “Apps” around the screen, adding custom wallpapers etc but these panels also have the ability to create jobs and save them as shortcuts on the home screen. If for example you had to photocopy a booklet which had stapling features, page numbers etc it can be frustrating having to remember those settings next time round. Many devices these days have the ability to programme those settings as a pre-set and add it to the home screen of the photocopier. Helping reduce time, frustration, notepads the lot!

Print and Copy Tracking

 Last of our handy features is probably one of the best! Did you know you can lock your photocopier down with a pin code so you can monitor the volume of jobs being photocopied or printed on the device? As a standard feature many machines have the ability to set restrictions to help manage or charge users for the printing they do, this can be a very handy feature to help bring down those costs. However we should mention that although this feature is free, it’s limited on it’s functionality in most cases, generally it would be recommended to use “Print Management Software” Such as “Papercut” which gives a vast amount of flexibility from using swipe cards and bio-metric scanners to log into the machines to detailed reporting or adding filters and restrictions to force double sided documents, duplicates, archiving, word filtering.

– To learn more about Papercut click here.

That’s it!

– We hope you enjoyed this little insight, there are so many more amazing features today’s printers and photocopiers can do, if you’d like to learn more tips, tricks or helpful features drop us a message or call: 01603 481995

It all started when Chester Carlson, a patent attorney, started looking for ways to make his job easier. He found his job painfully unbearable because of his arthritis. This is the box that everyone doesn’t know they rely on until it breaks down! “The Photocopier”. Here are five fun facts you probably didn’t know about that little device sitting in the corner of your office.

1. Colour Copiers Helped Make Disney’s 101 Dalmations 

The Haloid Corporation sent 7 colour copy machines to Disney in the late 50s. These copiers were used in the production of 101 Dalmatians. Haloid became Xerox, in honour of their best selling product.

2. FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!

Did you know tat the Xerox 914 has a tendency to overheat and burst into flames after extensive use? Xerox had to give out a free fire extinguisher with each machine?

3. “Butt” of the joke!

Though it might seem like a hilarious idea when you’re smashed at the Christmas party, dropping your trousers or skirt, sitting on your photocopier and pushing the green button can lead to problems. In fact, 20% of all copier repairs are required due to damage caused by somebody’s rear-end putting too much pressure on the glass. Want to avoid a very embarrassing call to your help team? Stay out of the copier room when the drink starts flowing in your workplace.

4. Arthritis Inspired the Invention of Photocopiers

There’s a good chance you know Chester Carlson invented photocopying back in 1938. What you might not know is Carlson was driven to research the process after spending years as a law student and patent attorney, re-writing legal documents by hand. Carlson had chronic arthritis, meaning each and every word he transcribed caused him terrible pain. What’s more, when Carlson first began shopping his invention around the big hardware companies of the day he was universally rejected. Why, asked companies such as IBM and General Electric, would anybody want a machine that can copy when they already have carbon paper? Carlson had to take his idea to the non-profit Battelle Memorial Institute, who backed him to research the technology

5. Remember to wipe

Did you know that 60% of all discarded hard drives from digital document systems, be they copiers, faxes or MFDs still contain data. When you consider the amount of highly sensitive information that runs through the average office on the average day, the danger should quickly become apparent. The message: make sure to erase all images and files from the system before getting rid of your device.

We hope you enjoyed these five interesting facts. If you’re looking for a new business photocopier, look no further than Norwich based photocopier specialists: Mayday Office Equipment Ltd. We lease and sell a range of quality machines, including photocopiers from Toshiba and Ricoh.

Click here for our product library.

The senior management team of one of the region’s largest office supply companies has successfully completed a buyout of the business.

Mayday Office Equipment Services, based in Norwich, has been taken over by Operations Director Karen Aldred, Commercial Director Jamie Mulhall and Sales Director Adam Northcut.

Leading East Anglian corporate finance and accountancy firm Larking Gowen helped with the successful buyout of majority shareholder and former Managing Director Graham Cassie.

Karen Aldred, who becomes the new MD, said that in the past the company had been approached by large national groups for takeover but had always managed to remain in the control of the people running the business.

“We see ourselves as a local company providing the best possible service we can for other local businesses. We know our clients well and they know us. We’re very proud to keep the business running with the same level of localised personal service”, she said.

Mayday supplies photocopiers, printers and other office equipment to businesses in Norfolk, Suffolk and parts of Cambridgeshire. The company also offers IT support which is a growing sector within the business.

Mayday was established on 1st May 1979, hence the name.

For more information call: 01603 481995.