Jargon Buster
MPS
Managed Print Service, a facility provided where the supplier takes responsibilities
away from the customer, effectively outsourcing their print infrastructure management.
Agile Office Systems specialise in this form of service.
MDS
Managed Document Services are similar to Managed Print Services (above) but run deeper,
i.e. looking at the processes and staff involved in creation and distribution of
documents.
MFP
Multi- functional printers, generic term for a printer device that can print, copy,
scan and sometimes fax.
MFD
Multi – functional device, as an above another generic term often based on a photocopier
that can also print, scan and fax.
Click
Industry term for a chargeable page. When a customer has an all-inclusive service
contract they pay for usage by print or copy and this is referred to as a click.
Cpc / Cpp
Cost per copy or cost per print, Industry acronym for a chargeable print. When a
customer has an all-inclusive service contract they pay for usage by print or copy
Cpm
Copies per minute, the speed at which a photocopier produces copies rated at A4 copies
per minute
Ppm
Prints per minute, the speed at which a printer produces prints, rated at A4 prints
per minute
AMCV
Average monthly copy volume – the number of prints or copies produced per month,
this information is particularly when working out which devices are most appropriate
and when doing cost comparisons.
RDF
Reversing document feeder, the feeder on the top of a photocopier, this will automatically
scan each side, one at a time.
ARDF
Automatic reversing document feeder, the feeder on the top of a photocopier, this
will automatically scan each side, one at a time.
SPDF
Single pass document feeder, this is a new style of document feeder where each sheet
is passed once across to scan units which reads both sides of the document at the
same time.
ADF
Automatic document feeder - the hopper on the top of a photocopier to feed sheets
through the scanner.
Follow me print
Generic term for software that allows prints to be sent to a single server and then
“pulled” to the nearest printer when the user signs in to that printer, generally
with a swipe card or PIN code.
Secure print
A generic term where a print job is sent to the hard drive of a printer but is not
physically printed until the user physically enters a code to release the job. It
is used for privacy purposes when there are shared printers.
A5
Paper size measuring 148x210mm
A4
Paper size measuring 210x297mm the most common format
A3
Paper size measuring 297x420mm
SRA3
Paper size of 320 x 450mm used mostly by digital and litho printers where a job is
trimmed to finish. This is usually where bleed is required; this means the colour
goes all the way to the edge.
Duplex
Where both sides of the paper are printed
Back to back
Where both sides of the paper are printed
N-up
The N refers to the number of pages printed on one page, usually for paper saving.
2 – Up would give you two pages on one page, 4 – up would give you four etc.
Scan to file
Generic term for scanning to a particular preset destination
Scan to folder
Generic term for scanning to a particular preset destination
Scan to email
Generic term for scanning directly to a designated email address
IP-Fax
feature - users can send faxes to, or receive faxes from, any IP-Fax machine connected
to the same network using TCP/IP protocol. Senders use the IP address to specify
the destination machine, or the alias number when using the gatekeeper. User can
also send faxes to the G3 fax machines connected to PSTN via the VoIP gateways.
Internet fax
Faxes can be transmitted to, and received from, other internet faxes using T.37 internet
protocols for reduced transmission cost and faster transmission speeds.
LAN fax
This allows users to transmit fax messages directly from PC without need to print
out and re-scan the fax document, reducing the number of steps taken to send a fax
and increasing desktop convenience.
PDF
Portable document format, common file format used when scanning or saving documents
to send to others. It is opened in many programs but notably Adobe Acrobat Reader
and the recipient of the document sees the document as it was meant to be seen, i.e.
an exact replica. The advantage of this is that there is no re-formatting of the
document that occurs within the Office suite.
TIFF
Tagged image format, common file format for scanned documents
MTIFF
Or multi tiff, multiple paged TIFF file as opposed to lots of individual files
JPEG
Joint Photographic Experts Group, abbreviated name for an image file format that
can be highly compressed to reduce file sizes, often used for pictures.
PDL
Page description language, the language the printer reads to convert the electronic
print job to a readable page
PCL
Printer Command Language, usually 5 or 6. This is a PDL (see above) developed by
HP and is commonly used for Microsoft Office application printing
PS
Postscript, usually level 3 is another PDL which was developed by Adobe and is commonly
used for printing PDF’s, high quality images and graphic files.
LDAP
Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, this is often referred to when setting up
user or scanning features on a multifunction device. It is basically using an organisations
address book to control the user access to a device, rather than adding and maintaining
them manually.
