Fit to print: Campus Copy goes high-tech to increase quality, reduce time

by Skip Anderson

Employing state-of-the-art digital printing equipment, Vanderbilt's two Campus Copy locations now offer their clients a range of copying and archival services not possible only a few months ago.

"We no longer have to have an original master copy to duplicate when making copies," said Tom Fox, director of University Printing Services. "The new digital hardware can make copies from a document on a computer."

Fox said a Heidelberg DigiMaster 9110 was installed in May at the Campus Copy in Rand Hall and another at its sister store on Chestnut Street a few miles east of campus. Each store offers printing and copying services similar to Kinko's, "without the neon, and we're not open 24 hours," he said. Last year, the locations combined produced an estimated 10 million copies.

Aside from its comparatively larger size, Fox said the new copiers are much like desktop laser printers, "except the Heidelbergs can print 110 pages per minute."

The new hardware offers a variety of timesaving advantages, such as the ability to save and recall frequently requested documents such as forms, class packs and related course materials, said Fox.

This is possible because of the fundamental difference between a digital copier and an analog copier. The digital copier reads and saves the electronic data directly from an electronic file (i.e. a Microsoft Word document) rather than duplicating a hard copy for each copy made. This translates to fewer paper jams, leading to quicker turnaround times on print requests. Once a print job is completed, it can be saved to a hard drive or to removable media such as a CD ROM, floppy or Zip disk. When it's time to print it again, it can be recalled and executed in a matter of minutes.

The Heidelberg service center monitors the equipment via modem, and can remotely inspect the machine.

"Sometimes they'll show up before we know there is a need for service," said Fox.

Digital copiers produce a higher quality of reproduction compared to analog copiers for two reasons: there is no image deterioration associated with each generation of copies, and they print at 600 dots per inch resolution rather than the analog standard of 300 dpi.

"The difference is dramatic," said Lisa Wiggs, associate director for University Printing Services. "You can easily tell which document came from the digital printer with the naked eye."

Brian Waack, associate director for University Printing Services, said digital copiers are "truly revolutionizing" the way people deal with their documents.

To prevent potential text-related problems, digital files are frequently converted to Adobe's Portable Document Format -- a cross-platform format that is not dependent on particular fonts or other file attributes to retain the document's physical characteristics -- before printing begins. This makes them almost half the file size and viewable from virtually any computer platform, including IBM, Macintosh and UNIX.

"An added bonus is that we can give the user a PDF file of the original document," said Waack. "In the future, the conversion will take place seamlessly when our clients submit their jobs over the Web."

Currently, each Campus Copy location is prepared to receive print jobs via e-mail or disk. If submitting a file electronically is not practical, the hard copy can be digitized using a high-speed scanner.

Another application for the digital copier is the use of the mail merge feature of word processing applications to print "variable data," making each copy of a print job unique.

"This is really the most exciting aspect of [digital copying]," said Waack. "We can do a mail merge at 110 copies per minute, plus the use of bar codes on pieces being mailed, which can save up to eight cents per piece."

Fox said this will free up administrative assistants in offices across campus who are frequently called upon to perform similar, time-consuming tasks.

"All too often, you have busy administrative staff performing production functions. They have more important things to do than that."

The copier also collates, staples and can print sizes up to 11 inches by 17 inches. Future generations of the copier are expected to print color.

Fox said Vanderbilt is the sixth university in the country to purchase a Heidelberg digital copier. Since then, Waack said, 20 universities have installed these machines.

For more information,
contact Brian Waack at 936-4544.