Printerless Office

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Like many other paperless practices, we hardly use our printer. It just takes up space.  

We will be moving to new premises soon. I am thinking of not having a printer in the office. Some time back, I gave away my home printer. 

I am thinking of taking the work printer home. 

When there is a rare need to print (HMRC and banks!) I will go to a printing shop 5 mins walk away or print from home.

Do you have a printerless office? Is printerless office the next step after paperless office?  

Replies (18)

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Locutus of Borg
By Locutus
13th Jun 2017 23:40

I also hardly use my printer - probably only once or twice a week for work matters.

But "hardly" is not the same as never.

My wireless laser printer doesn't take up much space. Why needlessly inconvenience yourself and your staff by getting rid of yours?

Thanks (1)
paddle steamer
By DJKL
14th Jun 2017 00:13

I could not survive. I always find that I miss things when proof reading on screen, as soon as I have a hard copy my eye is drawn to the errors, whilst for lots of things the errors are not significant (though annoying when spotted post event) for others (leases/licences etc) not getting the exact wording is crucial.

This is possibly an age thing re either old habits or declining eyesight.

Thanks (4)
Intercity
By Mr Hankey
14th Jun 2017 07:22

I'm paperless, but there are still odd occasions when the printer is needed.

I agree with Loctus, a small wireless laser printer hardly uses any room, there is no need to inconvenience yourself walking to a print shop.

Thanks (1)
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By Tax Dragon
14th Jun 2017 08:58

What's more tax efficient - convert the office printer to a home one (and do your office printing at home), or have no home printer and do your private printing in the office?

Thanks (1)
Man of Kent
By Kent accountant
14th Jun 2017 09:03

I disagree.

Bin the printer.

You can save time by cycling to the print shop instead of walking.

Thanks (2)
Replying to Kent accountant:
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By airgeadagam
14th Jun 2017 17:11

Unless a bike takes up more room than the printer.

You can save time, space and money by sprinting to the print shop.

Thanks (1)
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By Maslins
14th Jun 2017 11:23

For Maslins (circa 500 Ltd Co clients) we probably use the printer about once a week. Typically a letter to HMRC/a bank.

However sister company MVL Online does liquidations, where lots of things can't be done online. Use the printer virtually every day due to that.

Only you know how often you need to print, but unless your office is absolutely tiny, why not have a small one somewhere?

Thanks (1)
PJ
By paulgrca.net
14th Jun 2017 13:13

Not an age thing just a fact those who operate in a paperless environment make far more errors than those who print and use a hard copy - that is my opinion- discuss!

Thanks (2)
Teignmouth
By Paul Scholes
14th Jun 2017 14:04

I can't remember the last time I used mine for business, there's no need to cycle, or walk to a print shop just use something like www.docmail.co.uk for any dead trees* you need to post.

I've been screen reading docs for years, it's what you get used to and, in my case, is very much improved by having decent screens.

*Surprised to hear that the government are still using dead goats

Thanks (1)
Freddie
By Slim Freddie
14th Jun 2017 14:42

I have two offices, one has a printer but the other (main office) does not. I find I can survive for the most part without a printer. I’d say I need to print things like boarding cards or contracts every now and then. I would keep one in the office for those random things you need to print. There’s nothing worse than remembering that you forgot to print your boarding pass and all the shops are closed.

Thanks (2)
Glenn Martin
By Glenn Martin
14th Jun 2017 14:57

Get an all in one.
You will need a printer at some point so standing in a shop to print a letter off is just nuts.

The need for a printer i will imagine be replaced by the need for a good scanner come MTD. For the the size you are a good all in one wont break the bank.

If you gave your home printer away as you didn't need why would you take the work one (where there is some usage) home where you have no use and gave it away.

Thanks (2)
Replying to Glennzy:
Teignmouth
By Paul Scholes
14th Jun 2017 16:51

Hi Glennzy - Unless you have loads of pages, even flat bed scanners are becoming redundant.

The cameras on phones are so good these days and mine has a scanner setting to straighten and crop pages, so I (and clients) just snap the page and share it on email, Whatsapp etc or get it automatically uploaded for storage/sharing.

Thanks (1)
Replying to Paul Scholes:
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By Maslins
15th Jun 2017 09:50

Maybe this doesn't need to be a problem, but aside from quality (eg shaky hand/poor lighting/cropping etc) a main issue I have with photos over scans is that the former are often huge image file sizes. Sure, we can edit down in office, but scans seem so much better, automatically being a far more modest file size, and also typically more easily legible.

Thanks (1)
Replying to Maslins:
Teignmouth
By Paul Scholes
15th Jun 2017 11:59

Hi Maslins - I understand what you mean but, this has always been a problem, ie way before iphones, when clients would scan a 3 page doc as a fine quality JPG or Tiff arriving at anything between 20-50 Mb, I actually sat with clients and showed them how to reduce quality settings or set the default for docs to PDF.

There are now loads of scanner phone apps that have image stabilisation (for shaky hands) and mine allows me to crop/straighten and even adjust brightness & contrast but, to be honest, it does fine just snapping & sharing.

I use dropbox a lot and the app has a built in scanner feature that asks if you want to snap and save as PNG or PDF then automatically straightens and uploads to Dropbox so the same page that would be 2.4Mb as an image ends up at maybe 200-400K as a PDF.

So I can have a scan of a doc uploaded or emailed in perhaps 10 seconds, compared to 5 minutes if I have to turn on my all in one scanner wait for it clean the ink cartridges (why if I'm only scanning!!!), find the wifi and then scan to my computer.

Thanks (2)
Replying to Paul Scholes:
Glenn Martin
By Glenn Martin
15th Jun 2017 13:24

Hi Paul I am not a fan of using a phone for scanning other than for petrol bills or other small items.

The most errors I get with RB were when items had been snapped, much better with scanner. I tend to do them in batches of 30 plus so into document feeder and away you go.

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Replying to Glennzy:
Teignmouth
By Paul Scholes
15th Jun 2017 14:38

Hi Glennzy - yes, as I said, if there's a high volume of docs then a scanner with a good doc feeder would be better.

I and most of my clients though get most of supplier bills on email and so there's no need to scan for RB and with my client who received 30ish paper bills a week, he just stuck them in the post to RB to let them do all the work.

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Red Leader
By Red Leader
14th Jun 2017 15:06

Slightly off topic, but I remember when ... really savvy tech people used to carry around a mini printer with their laptops. Eeh, how times change!

Thanks (1)
Replying to Red Leader:
Teignmouth
By Paul Scholes
15th Jun 2017 14:43

RL - Surely you're too young to remember that? My first portable printer was for my ZX81 computer, where I'd create TBs and do simple payrolls, the problem was that it used thermal paper and so if you left the printout in the daylight for a couple of days the text vanished!

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