Advanced Printing Made Easy

Editor's Note: The following post is co-authored by Paul Nicholson and Orlando Lacayo. Paul is responsible for marketing in Dell's SMB Printer & Imaging PMA division, and you can follow him @PaulatDell. Orlando is a Global Product Manager within the SMB Printer & Imaging PMA division as well and posts on twitter @Olacayo.

Generally, making things more capable often leads to making them more complicated. Case in point: TV remotes today are much more capable – with controlling DVRs, multiple devices and information-rich guides – but they have vastly more buttons and are more complex to control than the traditional clicker.

Business printers are not so different. Now multifunction printers (MFPs) go beyond printing to scan, transmit and store documents to help businesses improve workflow efficiency. But here at Dell Printing and Imaging we’re using advancements in touch screen interfaces to help businesses reap these rewards while avoiding complex menus and confusing interfaces that often kill productivity and even prevent workers from taking advantage of these highly flexible machines.

But before we get into user interfaces, let’s briefly run through how MFPs can help businesses reduce the use of paper by 30 percent and improve efficiency.

Dell MFPs give companies the option to integrate paper-intensive tasks into electronic document workflows without the need of a separate computer. By scanning documents and using intelligent management software, documents can be sent to email accounts, networks, FTPs, specific groups of recipients or to devices. We’ll go into more about “going paperless” in a couple of weeks but that should give you an idea of how complex and intelligent MFPs are getting.

So how are Dell MFPs using touch interfaces to allow easy access to these and other advanced functions?

With the touchscreen included on the Dell 3333dn, 3335dn, and 5535dn, our MFPs are easy to customize so businesses can organize frequently used tasks or settings front and center. It also makes the task of printing specific documents from USB drives much easier, as you are able to quickly navigate files and see documents before you print them. And when printers have hard drives installed, previewing documents can also be extended beyond USB drives and allows employees to confirm that their print job is correct before printing, saving time and eliminating costly errors and reprints.

One of the best applications the touchscreen on these three models grants is the ability to save profiles on USB drives so an employee can have all their personalized settings and shortcuts immediately pop up. This means finance workers can walk up and have custom fax settings ready with a single click, while marketers can quickly have full size color prints scanned and emailed to regional partners. This greatly reduces time spent inputting commands, freeing up employee time and resources, reducing errors, and helping to create truly efficient enterprises.

Many of these same advantages – most of all being simple ease of use – are also available in the touchscreen equipped Dell 2355dn multifunction laser printer. While it doesn’t allow for the walk-up USB customization, it does give a simpler, easier to understand interface to users at a great entry price point.

The Dell Printing and Imaging team is working hard to empower businesses with easy to control yet highly capable MFPs. We feel this provides businesses with such a big advantage that we’re now offering $100 off of our two most popular touch-screen multifunction printers, the Dell 3333dn and 3335dn. This is a limited time offer, so take advantage now!

About the Author: Paul Nicholson