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Rollers in a laser printer transfer text from the printer mechanism to the paper. When it fails to function properly, the quality of your prints may suffer. Streaking, squealing, jamming, and odours coming from the printer are all symptoms of a bad transfer roller. To restore your prints to their normal high quality, troubleshoot your transfer rollers. StreakingIt’s possible that the roller is dirty if your printout appears lighter than it should or streaky in some places. Use a soft, dry cloth that won’t leave lint behind to clean it. Allowing liquid to touch the transfer roller can damage the unit and prevent it from properly transferring toner. If the print job is not only streaky but also splotched with black ink, the transfer roller should be replaced. SquealingSquealing indicates that the transfer roller is not properly positioned or that the clips that hold it are broken. To avoid damaging other components, remove the transfer roller from the machine according to the manufacturer’s instructions for your printer. When you push down on the left and right sides of the transfer roller, it should feel flat and springy. If repositioning doesn’t work, replace the transfer roller; if the clips are broken, have a professional replace the printer assembly. JammingIf your paper is jamming at the transfer roller, the hardware in the printer may be positioned incorrectly. Removing the transfer roller and replacing it correctly can help paper flow normally through the printer again. Wear gloves or handle the transfer roller from the ends to keep oils off the unit when removing it. When a new printer arrives, always readjust the transfer rollers because they can shift during transport. OdorsIf the printer emits an unusual odour, the transfer roller may be dirty or interacting incorrectly with another part. In either case, as soon as you notice the odour, stop all print jobs, remove the printer roller, and then wipe it before replacing it in the machine. When it’s back in place, print some test files to see if it’s working properly.

Whatever types of documents your company needs to print, you want output hardware that provides the best performance for the lowest possible purchase price. Today’s inkjet printers produce excellent photographic output and text quality that rivals that of a laser printer. Consider two top-level hardware characteristics as they relate to image quality when evaluating inkjet printers in light of your business and its typical document workflow, and select the version of these attributes that matches your workflow. Printhead DesignInkjet printers employ one of two basic printhead technologies. Thermal designs use heat to push tiny ink bubbles onto the paper, whereas piezo-electric designs use electricity to change the shape of the nozzle, releasing ink droplets of varying sizes. Because piezo-electric printheads do not require heat to force out ink, they may offer faster print speeds and longer hardware durability than thermal counterparts. Furthermore, smaller ink droplets can result in improved image reproduction. Ink TypeInkjet printers use dye- or pigment-based inks. Dye-based inks produce a wide range of brilliant colours, allow for smaller ink droplets, and are less expensive than pigment-based inks, but their absorption into paper can blur fine detail reproduction. Furthermore, dye-based inks fade faster than pigment-based inks. Their water-soluble colouring agents result in output with little water resistance. Pigment-based inks set on the surface of paper rather than sinking into it, making them less susceptible to water damage and fading, but they produce a narrower colour gamut. Ink UsageInkjet printers with low prices typically use only two ink cartridges: one for black and one for cyan, magenta, and yellow. If one of the three colours runs out before the other two, you’ll have to discard a partially viable cartridge. Individual ink tanks or cartridges are used for each ink colour in higher-end printers; photo printers may use eight or ten inks to produce subtle colour variations. Image reproduction quality can be affected not only by printhead and ink type, but also by the number of inks used by the printer and whether it includes options for optimal black output on papers with different surface finishes, typically glossy or matte. ConsiderationsAlthough the paper you use isn’t a printer feature, it has an impact on output quality almost as much as the hardware’s capabilities and limitations. Papers designed to improve the perceived sharpness and clarity of printed output by using specialised chemistry to produce well-matched surface characteristics can improve the perceived sharpness and clarity of printed output. Printing on standard office bond paper, on the other hand, yields inferior results, especially when printing photographs or graphics.

Every page in your office colour laser printer contains yellow dots that are too small for the average person to see. The dots form patterns that allow the printer’s make and model to be identified. Printer companies added the dots at the request of the US government in order to trace documents back to the printer. The Electronic Freedom Foundation, a civil rights and technology organisation, has investigated the use and nature of these yellow dots. Information PrintedColor laser printers’ yellow identifying dots contain information identifying the printer’s make, model, and serial number. The dots identify the current date and time if the printer has them. The exact information contained in the dot patterns is known only to printer manufacturers and the government, though outside investigators have partially deciphered its meaning. Affect on DocumentsThe yellow colour contrasts poorly with white paper, making the dots difficult to see with the naked eye. The dots are generated by the laser printing mechanism. In most cases, the dots have no effect on the quality of photos, graphics, or other documents printed on laser printers. Because the dots are so small, they have no effect on toner consumption. PurposeAs the resolution of colour copiers and laser printers has improved, the technology has simplified money counterfeiting and other types of forgery, which is why the FBI and the US Secret Service have asked equipment manufacturers to develop a method that allows law enforcement to detect counterfeit money produced on these machines and then trace the currency back to its source. Types of Printers AffectedYellow dot technology appears to be restricted to colour laser printers and copiers. Because monochrome laser, LED, and inkjet printers lack the yellow toner required to print the dots, these markings are not produced. Furthermore, because Xerox developed the yellow dot technology in the 1990s, this only affects printers manufactured since then. Yellow dot marks have been found on documents from a variety of printer manufacturers, including Xerox, Hewlett-Packard, Toshiba, and Canon. According to the Electronic Freedom Foundation, experts are unaware of any other secret identifying marks in printed materials at the time of publication. Making Dots VisibleBy shining a bright blue light on a printed document, you can increase the contrast of the yellow dots. Light from a blue LED “keychain” source, for example, turns the yellow dots black, making them more visible. A page with little content is an excellent candidate because the black dots stand out more against a blank background.

When you buy a new inkjet printer for your business, you quickly discover that it only accepts a limited number of ink cartridge models. If you run out of ink and your office supply store is out of the consumables for your hardware, that no-substitutions design can be aggravating. However, if you look inside the design principles that guide printer hardware, you’ll notice that not all inks are made of the same materials, effectively preventing one printer’s cartridges from working in another. Printer Design Printer ink is far more sophisticated and machine-specific than universal liquids like automotive washer solvent or window cleaner. Printer and print head designs differ from one manufacturer to the next and from one model to the next. Thermal inkjet printers heat their nozzles, causing them to expel tiny ink bubbles and sucking in ink as the heat dissipates. Piezo-electric inkjets use an electric current to bend a piece of crystal, opening an ink nozzle and emitting a droplet without the use of heat. The proprietary ink formulations used by manufacturers reflect their hardware configurations and output capabilities. Ink Types The types of ink used by these devices differ from manufacturer to manufacturer, just as printhead technologies do. The majority rely on dye- or pigment-based formulations. Dyes are the older and less expensive of the two technologies. Their vibrant colours and finely detailed output make for eye-catching prints, but they can fade faster than pigments, which are made up of colour particles suspended in a liquid. Paper absorbs dyes, which improves friction resistance but can blur details. Pigments dry on the surface of the paper, which helps images stay sharp, but their behaviour makes them susceptible to wear. Cartridge Shapes Even within the products of a single inkjet printer manufacturer, different cartridge designs are specified for different models. Although some of these cartridges may fit multiple models of hardware, these printers share hardware characteristics that allow them to share inks. When you try to install cartridges designed for a different hardware series, you’ll run into the “square-peg-in-a-round-hole” problem. Output Integrity Many inkjet cartridges technically fit interchangeably into the slots for other colours in the same printer. That doesn’t mean they can’t be used interchangeably, unless you’re doing a colour channel experiment. Inkjet user guides advise you to correctly install cartridges and to run a cleaning cycle on your hardware if you accidentally insert one in the wrong place. Even if your printer has more than four ink tanks, you’re unlikely to confuse the black ink tank with another colour. Because of the prevalence of text in typical output, most printers use a larger container for black ink.

Emails and text messages are convenient ways to communicate, but there are some things that must be written down. That means you’ll need printers, which come in a dizzying array of sizes, models, and capabilities. Printers are sometimes classified as impact or non-impact, though the ones you use in your office are almost always non-impact. What Is an Impact Printer?An impact printer needs to physically strike a ribbon against the paper to make a mark, which is where the name comes from. In the early days of the computer era, the best print quality came from so-called daisy-wheel printers, which worked pretty much like a typewriter operated by a superhumanly fast typist. They printed beautifully, but they were slow, lacked graphic capabilities, and were extremely noisy. It wasn’t quite like working in a roomful of jackhammers, but it was close. Many offices also used dot-matrix printers, which formed letters by hammering pins against the paper to make the correct pattern.Although the print quality was lower and they were still noisy, a dot-matrix printer was faster and could print graphics. Line printers were used for high-speed, high-volume printing. These printed a whole line at each strike, and could use either movable type – like a daisy-wheel printer – or a whole line’s worth of pins, like a dot-matrix printer on steroids. These were horrendously noisy too, but did their work in separate printing facilities where you didn’t have to listen to them. What Is a Non-Impact Printer?Once you know what an impact printer is, it’s easy to guess that non-impact printers are the opposite. Instead of hammering a letter onto the paper, they use a variety of gentler, quieter technologies. Inkjet printers are somewhat similar to dot-matrix printers, but instead of pins striking a ribbon they form letters with print nozzles that squirt tiny, almost microscopic dots of ink. Laser printers work on much the same technology as photocopiers, using a drum with an electric charge to attract powdered toner to the page, and then a heating unit to fuse it to the paper. Both technologies provide excellent print speed and quality, as well as beautiful graphics and the option of printing in colour.Thermal printers take a different approach. They form the letters using special heat-sensitive paper and controlled temperatures. This means they don’t need ink, ribbons or toner, which makes them great in niche uses like gas pumps or self-serve kiosks where you want to keep maintenance to a minimum. Printers in Your OfficeNon-impact printers, such as inkjets or lasers, are almost always used in and around the office. Inkjet printers can be significantly less expensive to purchase, bordering on disposable, but because of their relatively small ink cartridges, they are best suited for light to moderate use by individual users or small groups. The smallest and lowest-cost laser printers compete in that end of the market as well, while high-volume, high-speed lasers can churn out hundreds of thousands of pages just as quickly as a line printer and look better doing it. When you’re choosing printers for the office, you’ll need to look at your projected usage and the costs of ownership to make an informed decision. The Buying DecisionIt all comes down to how much printing you do and how you distribute your use. Inkjet printers are great for light printing, but their ink cartridges can be costly on a per-page basis. Laser printers get cheaper per page as you move up in print volume, with high-end machines – and their relatively huge toner capacity – costing relatively little. Big machines make the most sense when they’re shared, so if it’s physically feasible to have a single large laser serve multiple departments, that may be a better option than several smaller machines.Your best bet is to consider how much printing you do, the capacity and cost of each printer’s ink or toner, and then calculate how many you’ll need in a year. This, combined with the purchase price, gives you a good estimate of the cost of ownership for each printer you’re considering, which is a very useful way to choose between them. Impact Printers Still Have a PlaceYou’re unlikely to use an impact printer in your office, but they’re not entirely extinct. They still do some things very well, and there are many applications for them. If you need to print multipart forms on carbon or carbonless paper, for example, your carbon paper printer will always be an impact printer. It could be a dot matrix for low-volume forms or a line printer or line matrix for high-volume forms, but the physical impact is required. Impact printers are still used in industrial settings as well, where their physical reliability and tolerance of poor conditions – dust, heat, humidity – mean they’ll outlast any number of laser or inkjet printers. Another point that might weigh heavily in some businesses is that impact printers are very “green.” Your consumables are fabric ribbons, which have a long life and have a low impact on the environment, and the printers themselves can last for years or even decades with proper maintenance. Inkjet and laser printers, on the other hand, use a lot of ink and toner cartridges and only last a few years. The net environmental impact of an impact printer can be much, much lower.

Because of their permanent, water-resistant properties, industrial printer inks are oil-based, but the machines are expensive and not always suitable for smaller office setups. There are two types of ink available for a general desktop printer: oil-based pigment and water-based dye. Both contain a colourant, a solvent, and bonding additives, but there are differences in how these elements interact and deposit on paper that have a direct impact on water resistance, colour saturation, and overall print quality. Pigment-Based InksBefore being applied to paper, pigments must be mixed with a liquid. Pigment dyes, like industrial printing ink, are typically oil-based for their water- and fade-resistant properties, which are especially useful on slick surfaces such as transparencies and glossy brochures. Pigment dye printers apply a layer of colour on top of the page rather than absorbing it into the paper. The printer uses a combination of heat and pressure to evaporate the liquid and permanently attach the pigment to the paper after the pigment particles and solution mix coat the paper. Dye-Based InksWater-soluble dye-based inks mean that the colour is fully dissolved in the water mixture rather than being stored as tiny crystal particles. Dye-based ink is distributed in the same way that pigment inks are, with the printer laying down the ink solution and then applying the same heat and pressure to dissolve the liquid, but the dye-based ink is left bonded with the paper, absorbed within rather than coating the surface. PermanenceAccording to Wilhelm Imaging Research, a company that publishes printer permanence data, some dye-based inks degrade within two years of printing, though some manufacturers have managed to produce much longer lifespans (up to 100 years) if stored and displayed properly. Similar research indicates that pigment-based inks can last for more than 225 years. Water-SolubilityBecause dye-based inks are water-soluble, they are susceptible to moisture damage. A single drop of water will dissolve and mix the ink, and humid environments will cause the dye to evaporate faster. The oil-based crystal makeup of pigment inks, on the other hand, is unaffected by water, making it ideal for printed pieces that will be exposed to the elements or documents that will be archived for a long time. Color DepthBecause water-soluble compounds are also added for optical enhancement, the colourants in dye-based inks produce deeper blacks and more vivid colours than pigment-based inks. This makes them suitable for photo printing, which relies on vibrancy to bring out the details in a photograph. Pigment-based ink, on the other hand, is more resistant to smearing because it sits on the surface rather than being absorbed into it. Graphics with sharp colour differentiation are better produced with pigmented ink because it has a better blending effect than dye-based ink, which causes colours to dissolve and smear into each other. CostThe materials and production of dye-based inks are much less expensive, and the ink is much more widely available in stores. Pigmented inks are more expensive to produce than dye-based inks, so they are more expensive. However, pigment-based inks are becoming more common, which means that prices will begin to fall.

Laser and inkjet printers are the most popular choices for home or small-office use. Both produce high-quality prints. Laser printers are typically less expensive to operate and use a wider variety of papers, but inkjet printers are less expensive, physically smaller, and produce very good colour images for their price. There are two competing technologies in the inkjet market: conventional inkjets and “bubble jet” printers. Their printed output is similar, but they print using different mechanisms. Print BasicsEarly computer printers functioned similarly to typewriters. An inked fabric ribbon was used to stamp a letter shape onto the paper, leaving an imprint of that letter. Later models, known as “dot matrix” printers, used a set of fine pins to form letters from individual dots. They were faster and more versatile, but the print quality was mediocre. Dots are also used to form letters in inkjet printers, which were first developed in the 1960s. Individual dots or pixels, on the other hand, are much finer than with dot matrix printers, and the resulting print is of higher quality. Conventional Inkjet TechnologyAn inkjet cartridge is made up of an ink reservoir and a network of fine nozzles that produce the droplets used to print text and graphics on your page. Each nozzle contains a tiny piezoelectric crystal, similar to those used to generate buzzing sounds for alarms. When an electric signal is applied to the piezo crystal, it vibrates extremely quickly. The crystal squeezes out a tiny droplet of ink on the forward stroke of the vibration. It creates suction and draws ink from the cartridge’s reservoir into the nozzle on the backstroke, preparing it to print the next droplet. Bubble Jet TechnologyAn inkjet cartridge is made up of an ink reservoir and a network of fine nozzles that produce the droplets used to print text and graphics on your page. Each nozzle contains a tiny piezoelectric crystal, similar to those used to generate buzzing sounds for alarms. When an electric signal is applied to the piezo crystal, it vibrates extremely quickly. The crystal squeezes out a tiny droplet of ink on the forward stroke of the vibration. It creates suction and draws ink from the cartridge’s reservoir into the nozzle on the backstroke, preparing it to print the next droplet. ChoosingBubble jet technology can be found in Canon printers, as well as other brands that use Canon print mechanisms. Canon claims that its process produces more consistent droplet size and thus higher-quality print. However, for both home and business users, the technology used by a printer is less important than its applicability to the job and where it fits in your budget. Consider your printer’s anticipated workload as well as the cost of its consumables. Purchase a machine with a high enough duty cycle to meet your printing needs and low enough ink costs to fit your budget.

Line printers and laser printers operate on opposite ends of the output spectrum. If your company rarely prints multipart forms, a line printer is probably unnecessary. A laser printer, on the other hand, is not the best tool if all of your output is paperwork that needs to be distributed across multiple departments. Except for the word “printer,” these two types of hardware have almost nothing in common other than the ability to print information on paper. Impact PrinterAs each correct letter, number, or punctuation formed into a continuous matrix of characters on a chain, band, or rotating cylinder reaches the proper position across the width of a sheet of paper, line printers strike the paper with hammers. The line matrix printer, a later variation on this impact technology, uses a bidirectional shuttle with dot hammers that contact the paper instead of fully formed characters. Band and line matrix printers can both produce high-speed output at speeds of more than 60 pages per minute. Page PrinterLaser printers image a full sheet at a time by sprinkling a powdered mixture onto a drum in the shape of a page’s content. The drum has a positive charge that is reversed by a laser, allowing the mixture to adhere for just long enough to transfer onto a negatively charged piece of paper. The image is held in place by a heat source known as a fuser. Some colour printers apply each of the four colours separately (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black); others combine the colours and apply them in a single pass. RibbonLine printers, like all impact printers, use a single-color ribbon as their image source, producing output that can reach nearly 200 dots per inch. Because their type chains, bands, or cylinders only include complete characters, true line printers produce output that is entirely composed of letters, numbers, and punctuation. Monochrome graphics can be produced by line matrix printers. The ribbon creates the first multipart copy, with the copies behind it created by the impact on encapsulated ink or carbons. TonerLaser printers use a combination of plastic and pigment to produce monochrome or full-color output at resolutions of up to and beyond 1,200 dots per inch, rivalling the clarity and definition of a printing press. Because of their ability to reproduce line-screened output, they can create a variety of colours by combining different sizes of dots in their primary toner colors. Because of the strength of the heat-set bond between toner and paper, laser output is impervious to water, light, and even friction. Because laser output has no impact, laser devices only make copies by printing multiple iterations of the same document page.

When shopping for printers for your business, the first decision you must make is what type of printer to purchase. Printers use various inks to create documents, and each type of ink has advantages and disadvantages. Understanding the advantages of each type of ink can assist you in making the best decision for your company’s requirements. Liquid InkInkjet printers produce text and images by spraying microscopic droplets of ink onto the paper, where it soaks in. Inkjet ink is typically available in two forms. Although dye-based inks are less expensive, they produce images that fade over time or when exposed to ultraviolet light. Pigment-based inks are more expensive, but they deposit small particles of colour on the paper’s surface and are less prone to fading. Ink-based printers produce more vibrant colours than other types of printers and are ideal for printing photos and graphics. TonerLaser and LED printers use toner, a dry form of ink made up of tiny pigment particles. When you print a document, the printer charges a spinning drum with intense light, which attracts the toner particles in the page image. The drum then uses heat to fuse the toner to the paper, embedding the particles into the surface. Although laser and LED printers are faster than inkjets, they cannot produce the same colour quality as liquid ink models. Solid InkAnother type of printer employs “solid ink,” which consists of pigment particles embedded in wax, much like a crayon. A heated print head is used in these devices to melt the wax and deposit it on the paper, forming the image in multiple layers. Solid ink is non-toxic and produces the least amount of waste because it is formed into solid sticks that you simply insert into the receptacles of your printer. One disadvantage of solid ink is that the pigment and wax leave a visible texture on the page, which you can accidentally scrape off when handling the document. RibbonsTo deliver pigment to the page, impact and dot matrix printers employ an inked ribbon system. These printer cartridges contain a long fabric ribbon wound on wheels and passing through an ink reservoir. When installed, the ribbon sits between the print head and the page. The character’s head strikes the page through the ribbon, leaving an ink impression in the shape of the character. Due to the amount of ribbon wound inside, ink ribbon cartridges can be bulky, and they are typically available in monochrome or red-and-black varieties, limiting the colour palette available.

Ricoh offers a variety of single and multi-function machines to meet your company’s copying requirements. If your Ricoh machine is not making copies, you may be able to save money by troubleshooting the problem yourself before calling a technician for a service call. Understanding the potential causes of your copier’s problems may lead to a faster resolution.   General Troubleshooting 1. Examine any error codes displayed by the machine. Ricoh copiers display error codes that correspond to any common problem that the machine may encounter. For example, the code could indicate a paper jam or the need to replace a machine component. Look up the error codes in the service manual for your copier or on Ricoh’s support website (link in Resources). 2.Power cycle the copier by turning it off, waiting approximately one minute, and then turning it back on. This, like restarting your computer, clears the copier’s memory and may resolve the issue. If you are unable to turn off the copier using the power switch, disconnect the power cord and wait at least one minute before reconnecting your Ricoh copier to the power source. 3.Clean the copier if you’re having issues with overall print quality, as dirt and debris could be the culprit. Use a soft microfiber cloth dampened with window cleaner to clean the glass top. Allowing the liquid to pool on the copier may cause it to leak inside and damage delicate electrical components. Remove dust and toner particles from around internal components such as the fusing area and drum unit with a can of compressed air, as this debris can reduce copy quality and cause your copier to overheat. 4.To improve print quality, adjust the exposure or density settings on your Ricoh copier. Your copies may appear too dark or too light if these settings are set too high or too low. Typically, you can access these settings through your machine’s control panel. 5.Install a new toner cartridge. After adjusting your copier settings, copies that appear too light may indicate that your toner is nearing the end of its life. If you recently replaced the toner and are still experiencing issues, remove the toner and double-check that you have removed all packaging before reinstalling it in your copier.   Paper Handling 1.Reseat the paper that is currently in your copier’s paper trays. Frequent paper jams usually indicate a problem with how the paper was loaded into the tray. Removing the paper stack and reloading it into the tray can sometimes solve the problem. 2.Check the paper tray and the area of the machine where it is located for debris and damage. Dust and debris, such as tiny shreds of paper, can clog your copier’s feed mechanism. Replace any damaged components, such as broken or cracked ones, to restore proper functionality. Replacement parts can be ordered directly from Ricoh or from any authorised reseller. 3.Replace the paper that is currently in the paper tray. If the paper jams persist, replacing it with new paper may help because old or wrinkled paper may not move properly through the copier. 4.Confirm that the paper you’ve loaded meets Ricoh’s specifications. Using paper that is too thick for the machine may cause your Ricoh copier to malfunction and result in a paper jam. For a list of acceptable paper types for your specific model, consult your owner’s manual or Ricoh’s website.