Today's Digital Duplicators
Powerful technology, lower printing costs

By John Reiling

There was a time when churches did nearly all their communicating on Sunday morning. Someone would type up a single-sheet program for that week's service, include some parish announcements, run off a few hundred copies on the 15-year-old office duplicator and hand them out at the door. For special projects--offering-plate envelopes, church letterhead and the like--they'd call the local printing business and place an order. What could be simpler?

But times have changed. Churches are involved in more community activities, they have greater fund-raising needs, and they understand the importance of "marketing" their presence and their role in the community. In short, churches are communicating more with their parishioners, the local press and potential contributors, and they need access to the appropriate tools of the trade.

Unfortunately, churches tend to keep their printing budgets relatively low. The challenge, then, is to find the most effective tools available that offer economy and productivity. One strong candidate: today's new digital duplicators.

Part offset, part copier

In-house printing systems customize direct mail pieces like this Impact Card from Outreach, combining a professional appearance with a personal touch.

Digital duplicators are the direct descendants of the clunky, chemical-laden machines that schools and churches once used to run off those fuzzy assignment sheets, permission slips and bulletins. Those old-time machines are no longer with us, but the basic principle is fundamental to today's digital duplicators. The machine creates through digital scanning (as compared to cutting a stencil in the old days) a master from which copies are made. The process is more like that of an offset press than a xerographic copier. Once the master is created, copies are run efficiently and inexpensively. Consider the following simple example: To run 500 copies of a single 8.5 x 11-inch black-and-white impression on any copier, the typical cost-per-copy estimate is about 1.5 cents. To run that same job on a digital duplicator would be less than half a cent per page. Add the use of "spot" color to brighten its look and grab the reader's attention and it would still cost about a penny a page.

Here's another example: Let's say you're running a few hundred copies of a two-sided 11 x 17-inch sheet with two-color highlights. The per-copy cost with a digital duplicator, depending on the length of the run, can be as low as two cents per copy. Take that same job down to your local quick printing shop and you'll pay at least 10 cents per copy, probably more.

Let's be clear about one thing: The digital duplicator isn't designed to replace the workaday office copier. The "master" created on the duplicator is relatively expensive to make--between 35 and 45 cents--and becomes more cost-effective as the number of copies increases. For those small runs of five or ten copies, the digital duplicator doesn't make sense.

The key is to review the kind of work your church is doing. Pew cards, Sunday programs, letterhead, business cards and newsletters are probably typical. Our research suggests that 90-percent of all the in-house printing and copying done by a church organization consists of more than 30 copies of one thing, the approximate threshold at which the digital duplicator becomes the most economical choice.

Customers tend to be very pleasantly surprised at the overall savings they realize with the in-house digital duplicator, usually about 1/3 the cost of outsourcing. But they also point out an intangible benefit: better control over their work and their production schedule. Is the quick print shop over-scheduled today? Does the printer around the corner really mean it when he promises your job will be ready by three?

Bonita Legan of Valley Mills Christian Church in Indianapolis, IN, told us she's had trouble in the past scheduling volunteer church members to help address and mail the parish newsletter. She was often at the mercy of the print shop, which couldn't always be relied on to deliver the job on time. With the church's new duplicator, she sets a schedule on which volunteers can rely.

Get connected for better results

In terms of the quality of newsletters, bulletins, stationery and the like, remember the power of the office PC and consider the benefits of "connecting" a digital duplicator to the church PC or network. With PC prices coming down as fast as they are, impressive design and publishing capabilities are within the reach of just about everyone. Desktop publishing programs like Microsoft Publisher and PageMaker are more user-friendly than ever--something that we've seen over and over when we look at the work being turned out by our church customers with little if any technical or creative training.

The "connected" digital duplicator acts as a direct high-speed printer linked directly to your PC. It avoids what we call the "sneaker net" syndrome, the time-consuming and quality-sacrificing process of creating bulletins, say, on the PC, printing it on the office laser printer, then walking it over to the copier run off 300 copies. There are several problems here (above and beyond the unnecessary wear and tear on those new Nikes). First, the quality of the document suffers. Whenever you output a document and create a next-generation original, the clarity and quality are degraded by as much as 15-percent. With a connected digital duplicator, every piece in the output tray is essentially an original.

Running hundreds of copies on the office copier presents other problems as well. As a company that makes both copiers and duplicators, we know firsthand that the office copier is not designed to be a printing press. Using it as one will inevitably take a toll in terms of more frequent visits from your service technician. Consider a 500-copy job. For the office copier, this means more than 4,000 separate mechanical operations. For a digital duplicator, it's just 500. A nice benefit is that when you move that volume printing burden from the computer to the digital duplicator, you'll find the copier running better with less down-time and fewer service calls.

Great idea...now what?

If the digital duplicator route seems like the right solution for your church, it's time for your next step: finding the right unit, features and vendor for your needs.

The digital duplicator is relatively simple in terms of features and performance standards. The main variables are speed and scanner resolution. Until recently, most duplicators scanned originals at 300 or 400 dots per inch (dpi). Those medium-resolution models are still very much a part of the marketplace, though they've now been joined by a number of 600-dpi systems that produce sharper, higher-resolution output. In terms of speed, digital duplicators turn out anywhere from 120 to 130 pages per minute (ppm), probably more than adequate for most church office applications.

Look for a system that's flexible in terms of input. Some machines accept originals only via document feeder. That's fine for single-sheet originals but it doesn't let you scan pages in a book, for example. For that you'll want a unit that includes a copier-like glass platen that accepts those non-feedable originals.

Something else to look for in a system is the means by which paper is guided through the duplicating process. The best systems use paper clamps, or grippers, to pull the paper. It's a method revived from more expensive offset technology. Less precise are the older belt-driven guides some vendors offer. Related to that is another desirable feature: electronic vertical and horizontal registration setting that automatically resets registration to "home" after it's been adjusted.

Finally, the system's only as good as the organization that backs it up. Be sure that the vendor's sales, distribution and service divisions can give you and your digital duplicator the support you need. Every church has its own applications and requirements. A good vendor should be able to sit down with you and find out exactly what your printing and duplication needs are. From there, it's a simple step to putting together an appropriate system proposal for your church. It's an investment that's bound to bring good returns, not just in savings, but in a more creative and effective communications program.

John Reiling is a senior product manager for Ricoh Corporation in West Caldwell, NJ. Ricoh manufactures and markets a complete range of Priport digital duplicators.