Combining printing, scanning, faxing, and copying
| Pages | 147-150 |
| Published date | 01 February 1995 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb045356 |
| Date | 01 February 1995 |
| Author | Howard Falk |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
Hardware Corner
Combining printing, scanning,
faxing, and copying
Howard Falk
Perhaps you have noticed that, ever since fax and scanning came into common use
with personal computers, there has been a certain overlapping of functions. The
functions I'm talking about are printing, scanning, faxing and copying. Most per-
sonal computers now have laser printers attached. Many also have fax modems and
a smaller number of
PC
systems have scanners. At the same time, many PC users
also have separate fax machines and copiers.
Eliminating the fax machine
Let us think of the fax machine as a
scanner (to read pages being faxed and
convert them into fax images), plus a
modem (to transmit page images over
telephone lines), plus a printer (to con-
vert incoming fax). All three of these
functions are currently available to
well-equipped PCs. Why then can't
we eliminate the fax machine entirely
and have the PC perform both fax
transmission and reception? We can
already receive faxes on our fax mo-
dems,
and can also transmit faxes
through these modems (provided the
faxes come from page images of text
and graphics stored in our computer
files). To complete the fax capability
— by transmitting faxes of printed or
written pages — all we have to do
is
to
use a scanner to store these pages in
our computers, and then use our fax
modems to transmit them.
It is true that the TWAIN format is
used by fax machines to form page im-
ages,
while computers use different
data formats for page images. This is,
however, no obstacle since software is
available to convert between fax
TWAIN format and computer
for-
mats.
Software
is
also available to read
printed characters from computer-
stored graphical page images, and con-
vert those characters into text that can
be manipulated by standard wordproc-
essing programs.
Now that we have conceptually
eliminated the fax machine, let us take
a look at the copier.
Eliminating the copier
A copier can be thought of as
a
scanner
(that reads the pages to be copied) plus
a printer (that reproduces the pages in
any desired number of copies). Once
again, the well-equipped PC already
has the basic functions needed to per-
form these tasks. If the page to be cop-
ied is already stored in the computer,
we can simply print it out. Standard
wordprocessors allow us to select the
number of copies we want as part of
their normal printing function. If a bill
or another written or printed document
is to be copied, we can run
it
through a
scanner, then print out the stored im-
age in as many copies as we wish.
Have we conceptually eliminated
the copier? Well, almost. Powerful
copiers perform some added tasks be-
yond simple page reproduction. Let us
consider some of
the
most important of
these
tasks,
and the ways they might be
done by PC equipment.
The first set of tasks is feeding up to
50 pages into the copier and making
copies of pages that are overlapping,
of different
sizes,
or
are
bound.
When I
try to imagine what sort of scanning
machine could perform these tasks,
what I picture is a scanner that has all
the input capabilities of
a
sophisticated
flat-bed copier machine.
The next set of tasks is collating,
sorting and stapling multiple copies.
Laser printers already available on the
market are able to perform these func-
tions.
However, such printers are ex-
pensive — out of reach for small or-
ganisations and individuals. Perhaps
development of copying as a personal
computer function will lead to lower-
cost mechanisms for adding these
functions to garden variety laser print-
ers.
Enlargement and reduction of page
images? No basic problem here: these
functions are already handled rou-
tinely by PC graphics software.
Use the PC for everything!
Putting all this together, what I would
like to have for faxing and copying is
clear: a reasonably-priced super-scan-
ner with the input capabilities of a flat-
bed copier, and a reasonably-priced
printer that can collate, sort and staple
multiple copies of documents. I'll use
my own fax modem, but
I do
need soft-
ware that will translate back and forth
between the TWAIN fax format and
the formats my wordprocessing soft-
ware can use; and I need optical char-
acter recognition software to convert
incoming fax images into computer-
readable text. To bind all this together,
I would also like software that lets me
control faxing, printing, copying,
scanning and related file-handling
with my mouse and keyboard, through
convenient computer-displayed dia-
logue boxes.
A collection of composite machines
I
don't see any technical obstacle
to
us-
ing the PC for everything. Yet, sadly,
the necessary hardware and software
do not seem to be available in usable
form. Instead, when
I
search for means
The Electronic Library, Vol. 13, No. 2, April 1995 147
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