Photo by caterina
When you have an office, buying a printer usually isn’t even something you would think about. It’s just one of those things you need. Or do you?
The Paper Jammed blog has a series of articles asking that very same question.
To me, Part 2 is the most interesting one. If you only print occasionally, the author makes the case that you can get away with not having a printer at all.
The first option he goes through is printing online, and does a runthrough of using Fedex Kinkos and Staples online printing services.
The second, of course, is taking your thumb drive to the local office center.
In my opinion, he makes a pretty compelling case. Have you ever used an online printing service? How did it work out for you?
No related posts.
It seems to me that even if you would never actually use a traditional scanner for document scanning after seeing the ScanSnap in action, having access to a scanner and printer is wise.
I have a Canon MX850. It's one of those multi-function boat-anchor type things. It'll fax, print, scan, and copy, it'll print/scan/copy two-sided, has both a paper cassette and a rear hopper. It takes individual tanks for each color that are just ink like the Epsons, but you can replace the print head too. (You almost have to order that from Canon though..) It's got a document feeder that's not totally pathetic, and it uses the Mac's native Image Capture unlike the HPs. It's networkable, and reasonably cheap (because it's been replaced by a model that does all of this plus wifi..)
If you don't need high volume output, it's probably cheaper in terms of your time to use a printer than to use FedEx No Longer Called Kinkos. Once you get to using your ScanSnap and working with PDF files (trivial for us Mac people, and not difficult for Windows people either with a PDF printer), you don't need a printer as often I agree—but you never know when you suddenly need a FAX machine or a photo scanner or a quick copy or, horrors, a printout.
Yes we use Kinkos for larger documents. It is very convenient; you can email up to 50MB or send via their secure site if confidential information. They do a great job and will even pick up and deliver free of charge. They are much more affordable than our local printer.
Julie K
Thanks for the tip Julie!
Hello there.. I am quite new to blogging world and I been doing some research to get some ideas. Your wordpress blog definitely has help me. Thank you for that!.. and not to mention I’vebookmarked your Do You Really Need A Printer? | DocumentSnap .