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The Super Hero that is Secure Print is: Easier than a cryptogram, More powerful than a snooping co-worker, Able to secure data in a single, simple process, It’s a trick!?  It’s an illusion!? No! It’s Secure Print!

Secure Print works by allowing you to assign a password / PIN (Personal Identification Number) to the document when you send it to the printer.  The document will not print till you walk up to the printer and release the document to print using the password / PIN you assigned.  The secure print feature is activated in the driver when you send the job to print.  I have included a sample driver screenshot here but as always models and drivers differ so your screen may look different.  To get more information please go to the support page and enter your model number and then search on “Secure Print”  to see if the feature is available and if so, how to use the feature. 

This is a great feature to use for any document that has sensitive information, for example documents containing credit card numbers, social security numbers, confidential work product, medical information or simply your weight.   It will also keep the office snoop (you know every office has one!) from reading your documents.  Short of Invisible ink, which we do not have for our printers (note to R&D!) this is a great way to safeguard your document.  The feature will also keep your document from walking away in the hands of someone else because you will be there when it prints.  You can also send several documents to the printer and they will not print till you are at the printer to release them.   Below  is a video about Secure Print.  The video shows a WorkCentre 7525/7530/7535/7545/7556 but the principles are the same for other products that have the Secure Print feature.  Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Viddler video. Check out this great feature now! 

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I bet when you hear Xerox you think about something to do with copies or printing.  Xerox is an ever evolving and multifaceted company.  You may not have even been aware of our paradigm shift which in part resulted from the acquisition of Affiliated Computer Services (ACS). Paradigm shift (originally coined by T.S. Kuhn, a US philosopher of science) has been a buzzword for decades but in this instance means a transformation or metamorphosis that doesn’t just happen but is driven by agents of change.   Change has been a constant for Xerox since Chester Carlson first invented the xerographic process. The new changes include  business processes in healthcare, traffic, government and many other areas that impact our daily lives.  We have exponentially expanded the way we can simplify business processes and the processes that make our world go around. 

Xerox has many products, software, and services to simplify your life. You may not even be aware of the things you do every day that may be part of a process that Xerox helped create or facilitate.  Daily activities  from the way you  electronically pay tolls on the roadways to managing your medical records to protecting your children on the school bus.  All of these offerings and many more can, of course, be found on our Xerox website.  But you can see a quick overview of how we simplify the world by watching this video. 

These products, software and services come with our excellent support services and dedicated Xerox  personnel  that  can help you throughout the creation and implementation of the process.  Help us create a solution for you and together we can make the world simpler.

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Do you Duplex?  I duplex and you should too.  I’m not talking real estate or the movie with Ben Stiller, I am talking “duplexing” your documents.  Duplex printing or copying allows you to print or copy to both sides of the paper, this reduces the amount of paper used and may make your document more manageable because it contains fewer pieces of paper.  Duplex is a cost cutting measure saving your paper, which saves on paper costs, and saves on trees and resources to make the paper, so duplex is environmentally friendly as well.

Duplex is a feature available on most of our products.  It is recommended that you make duplex the default for your machine and then if you need to print or copy single-sided or simplex you can always change the setting for that one job.  

Check out the support page for your product to see if duplex is an option on your machine and how to change the default to duplex.  Remember you can change the default for both copying and printing.  Some machines will even let you receive faxes in a duplex mode.  So if you have a faxing feature or option check to see if you can receive in duplex. I have included a video on how to copy in duplex to show you how easy it is to select duplex.  This video is for a WorkCentre 5755 but the steps are similar on other machines.  You can find full instructions on duplexing at the support page for your machine. 

Now there are some special media that you cannot duplex, obviously transparencies would be one of them that would just be too busy to print on both sides of a transparency!  Also some very heavy duty stock will not work with duplex.  Please check your paper specifications information to see which media and stocks will work with duplex and your applications.  You can find some helpful matrices if you navigate to the Paper Resource Center page and then select the Recommended Media List link on the left.  You will see a list of product groups select your product group, in this example we will select WorkCentre and then your product, we will select the WorkCentre 7755/7765/7775 and you can then see all the papers that will work with your machine and any limitations, for instance some of the media will have a S in the boxes for the trays indicating these can only be used for simplex, or single-sided, no duplexing allowed!

Consider duplexing on your jobs to save paper and money.

Drupa is here!!  What is drupa you ask, well drupa is the Olympics of the printing and media industry.  Drupa is the world’s largest international printing equipment exhibition held every four years at Messe Düsseldorf in Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.

So why is this important to you?  Because at drupa and events like it we introduce new products and technologies.  We also get to see new technologies and solutions from others in the printing industry.  Drupa started on May 3, 2012 and will run through May 16, 2012 in Düsseldorf, Germany.  Can’t be in Germany during that time well you can still enjoy the show by visiting our drupa site and exploring all that will be going on with Xerox at drupa. 

On our drupa site you can tour our stand, watch videos, and join our ongoing Twitter feed at #Xeroxdrupa.  You can even register for our virtual event which will begin on May 10.  Xerox’s stand at drupa 2012 will feature the latest in digital printing technology and workflow solutions.  Xerox will  focus on helping print providers build a profitable business with our offerings at drupa. To show our commitment to innovation and creativity, there will be daily performances by Cirque du Soleil®.  Xerox is a proud sponsor of Cirque du Soleil touring shows and is their official office equipment and document technology services provider.

Please join use for the drupa 2012 experience and check back on our drupa page during the next couple of weeks for new and exciting information straight from the drupa show floor. Below is a video about what to expect from Xerox at drupa 2012!!

“To print a banner page or not to print a banner page that is the question
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The banner page on all prints,
Or to take action against a sea of pages
And by disabling end them.”
             Paraphrased very loosely from Hamlet, Act 3, scene 1.

My sincere apologizes to William Shakespeare!!  But seriously there are good reasons for printing banner pages but a case can also be made for turning them off.

What is a Banner Page?  The Banner page is the first page of a print job used as a separator of print jobs and used to identify the originator of the print job request.    

In a work environment where many people print to the same printer, banner pages can be helpful in differentiating between print jobs and also letting others know the owner of the job to either expedite delivery of the job or allow it to be left for that person to pick up.  Banner pages can include the date, time, name of the person printing the document, the IP address of the computer from which the job was printed and in some cases the name of the document. 

Now if you work in an environment where there are only a couple of people using the same printer or maybe it is a dedicated printer then you may not need to use the banner page.  Turning off the banner page will save paper.  The banner page should be turned on or off at the machine and in the driver.  You can learn how to enable or disable the banner page by visiting the support page for your machine and entering the search terms banner page or separator page.   Below is a sample screen shot of the driver properties.  This graphic shows where you can enable or disable the banner page in the driver.  Of course your driver may vary depending on the model of the machine and the driver being used.

I have also included a video of how to enable and disable the Banner sheet on the WorkCentre 7328/7335/7345/7346.  As always the screens may be different on your machine.  Please check for a video on banner pages on your support page on the video tab. Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Viddler video. Shakespeare said and I quote correctly this time:  “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”  –  Hamlet, Act II, scene 2

So you decide, are banner pages useful for your environment?

Last week we talked about all the ways Xerox helps Mother Earth on Earth Day and every day.  Today April 27, is Arbor day.  Arbor  is the Latin word for tree.  Arbor day was first proposed  in Nebraska on January 4, 1872 by the secretary of Nebraska  J. Sterling Morton.  Morton was a journalist, a pioneer that moved from Detroit to the Nebraska territory. Morton had a love of nature and understood the importance of trees as windbreaks to keep soil in place, for fuel, building material and shade from the sun. In Nebraska he and his wife planted trees and gardens at their new home.  Eventually Morton became the secretary of Nebraska and proposed a tree planting holiday to be called Arbor Day. Nebraska, mind you, was a more or less tree-less state at the time.  The first Arbor Day was celebrated in Nebraska on April 10, 1872 and over one million trees were planted.  The idea of observing such a holiday spread to other states later in the 1870s. States today most commonly observe the National Arbor Day holiday on the last Friday in April. The observance of National Arbor Day has even spread to countries outside of the U.S.

So why the history of Arbor Day?  Because trees are important and here at Xerox we understand that.  Xerox, with the help of the Arbor Day Foundation has a program where a tree will be planted in our nation’s forests for every time a Xerox DocuMate scanner is registered. Customers can easily register their scanner at www.xeroxscanners.com by clicking on the Register Your Product link, and filling out a short form.

Beyond directly facilitating the planting of trees, Xerox also has Xerox High Yield Business Paper which uses half as many trees, is manufactured with less water and chemicals, and is produced in a mill that uses hydroelectricity to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 75 percent. Plus, because this paper is lighter weight than paper made by the traditional chemical process, it costs less to ship and mail. It is the first and only paper of its kind that performs reliably in digital printers and copiers.

The new High Yield paper is made by a mechanical pulping method – the process that makes newsprint and the offset-printing paper that’s used for some directories, catalogs and flyers. Wood chips are fed into large machines that grind the fibers loose to make the pulp. Because wood chemicals are not removed from the paper-making fiber, the process produces twice as much paper per tree – a yield of more than 90 percent.

Another option to save paper and therefore trees is to use the GreenPrint™ software to help you eliminate any unwanted pages before they are ever printed.  GreenPrint is a free software program that works with all our solid ink machines.  So if you have one of our ColorQubes or any of our other solid ink machines please check out the Print Greener website for more information or for your copy of the software. 

Please enjoy your Arbor day and do your part to save a tree or plant a new one.  The earth and your future generations will thank you.

 Have you used CentreWare Internet Services (CWIS)?  CWIS is a very useful tool available on Networked printers.  CWIS is the embedded HTTP server application that resides in the printer. Internet Services allows Administrators and Users to modify network and system settings on the printer from the convenience of their computers.   The CWIS allows you to program and check the status of the machine from the comfort of your office or cubicle.  I love this feature because I can do so many things without having to touch the printer.  This can save me time and the CWIS interface is so easy to use.  I can check the status of the printer, the paper trays and the consumables.  I can check settings and actually change settings from the CWIS screens.  Please be aware that some changes may require the Administrators password.  I can even upgrade the machines firmware from the CWIS.  Pretty much anything you can do from the User interface of the machine you can do from the CWIS.  All you need is the Internet Protocol (IP) address of the machine and you can access the CWIS.  The IP address will be a number split into octets.  Example:  123.456.789.   Why are these 3 digit sets separated by decimal points called octets and not triads?  Good question, the answer is each set of 3 numbers is 8 bits of information so they are called octets, okay granted that is a little confusing but all you really need to know is the IP address and you are in the CWIS.   

How?  Well simply open up a web browser of your choice, Internet Explorer, FireFox, or any other browser and enter the IP address in the Address field and press Enter / Return.   The IP address of your machine can be found on the Settings or Systems report.  These easy steps will take you to the CentreWare Internet Services where you will see several tabs that will allow you to program many functions of your machine.  Please take a look at this feature and head on over to the Support page for your machine and search on CWIS to see all the things that can be accomplished using this interface.   Explore the possibilities!!!

Below is a graphic of the opening page of the CentreWare Internet Services (CWIS).  Disclaimer:  not all machines will have the CWIS, your window may look different depending on the model of your machine and browser being used, 4 out 5 dentists agree, images may be larger than they appear, and results may vary.  (Just making sure you’re paying attention!!)

Happy Earth Day!!  This weekend Sunday  April 22^nd is the day set aside to increase awareness and appreciation of the environment.  Earth Day was founded in 1970 by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin as a teach-in about the environment. Earth Day has become an international day of awareness observed in virtually every country in the world. Earth Day was and is a grassroots effort to save all aspects of the environment from the impact of the human race and our waste.  The world produces approximately 1 billion tons or 2,000,000,000,000 – that’s 2 trillion pounds of solid waste per year.  It is estimated that each person in the United States produces approximately 4.5 pounds of waste per day, that is 1600 pounds per year. 

Xerox has made a commitment to make everyday Earth day.  Xerox has a multitude of programs to reduce our impact on the environment.  The Xerox 2011 Global Citizenship report explains many of the initiatives that have been ongoing projects for Xerox.  You can look specifically at the “Preserving the Planet” tab for the things we do to support, and sustain the world in which we live and work.  On the left side of the Preserving the Planet page there are several links to more information about our conservation and environmental efforts. 

Let’s look at just a few of the programs and products Xerox has as part of our environmental initiatives.   Containers and packaging account for 31% or about 77 million tons of the Municipal Solid Waste in the United States alone.  Xerox is taking a proactive stance against some of this packaging.   Our solid ink products have reduced the ink packaging by almost 90 %. 

We also have recycling programs for supplies and machines.  Customers like you return 2.7 million cartridges and containers every year.   Our product take back program has remanufactured and recycled Xerox products keeping over 2 billion pounds of waste out of landfills.   

Do you want to create a green office?  No, I am not talking about painting it green though you can, I am talking about leveraging the tips on our Create a Green Office webpage to take your office to the next level of green and sustainable. Please watch the short video below about Xerox and Sustainability and then check out some or all of the links I have provided.   

Now I will leave you with some interesting facts I ran across while writing this article:

• New York’s largest export is waste paper.  
• An estimated 80,000,000 Hershey’s Kisses are wrapped each day, using enough aluminum foil to cover over 50 acres of space — that’s almost 40 football fields. All that foil is recyclable, but not many people realize it.  So next time you unwrap a Hershey’s Kiss remember to recycle.
• A used aluminum can is recycled and back on the grocery shelf as a new can, in as little as 60 days.  So that Coca Cola can you are drinking from today could be a Pepsi can in about 2 months.

Please go recycle some junk mail, cans, banner sheets or newspaper and do your part to help our planet.  Rest assured that your chosen printing and document management partner, Xerox Corporation, is doing its part!!!

As Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz said, “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”   No we are living in the land of Social Media.   We are in the age where information travels worldwide at what seems like the speed of light.   Social media has “blown up” in the last 8 years with the founding of Facebook on February 4, 2004, the launching of YouTube in February 2005 and the creation of Twitter on March 21, 2006, just to name a few.  Blogging is the granddaddy coming into its own in the early 1990s.  Xerox is being proactive in trying to connect to you, our customers, through many different forms of social media.  Our goal in using social media is to get information to you as quickly as possible and to keep you in the loop about what is going on in our ever changing business.  So how can you connect to us you ask?  Well first subscribe to this blog using the subscribe section to the right, see it right over there? (Ok imagine me pointing to the right.) Just enter your e-mail address and we will notify you with a short and simple e-mail when this blog and only this blog posts a new article.   You may also unsubscribe at any time, though we hope you don’t, again right over there.

You can subscribe to our channel on YouTube where you can watch videos about many different subjects from new technology to interviews from trade shows to our commercials.  You can follow XeroxSupport or XeroxCorp on Twitter which will keep you up to date on the latest things going on at 140 characters or less.  There are several other Xerox groups on Twitter that you can follow as well.  We also have a corporate Facebook page where you can learn even more about Xerox and what we are doing.  In addition to the main corporate Facebook page there are several other Xerox pages for different divisions and countries. 

We also have a Customer Support Community which is a peer to peer forum where you the customers help each other with answers to questions about our products.   You can find out even more about our social media presence by taking a look at our social media page on Xerox.com. 

Shameless promotion ahead.  You can use the Facebook, Tweet, Google +, and LinkedIn buttons at the top of this post to share this blog or any Xerox blog!

So subscribe to us, friend us, follow us, and check out our channel, don’t make me get the flying monkeys!

Did you know that the first tweet that can be verified was “just setting up my twttr” sent by one of the developers Jack Dorsey at 1:02 pm on March 21, 2006?  Do you think in decades to come that tweet will become as well known as “Mr. Watson, come here, I want you.” the first words spoken on the telephone by the inventor Alexander Graham Bell on March 10, 1876, 130 years earlier? 

Until next time “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!” – Wizard of Oz 1939

Have you ever needed to make a copy of letter size and legal size documents?  Well it can be difficult to do on some machines.  But not on your Xerox multifunction device (MFD).  You can easily copy mixed size originals by using the mixed size option on the copy layout tab.  Of course the paper sizes must be loaded in the machine.            

To copy with mixed size originals select the Copy option and then select Layout Adjustment and then select Original Size.  In Original Size you will select the Mixed Sized Original setting.  These instructions may vary depending on the model of the machine you are using.  As always please consult the support page for your machine for instruction or for the user manual which will also have the instructions.  Not all machines have the mixed size original capabilities but many do.  So check it out for your machine either in the User Manual or at support. 

I have included this little video about how to copy mixed size originals.  This video is based on a WorkCentre 7525/7530/7535/7545/7556  so your screens and instructions may be different.  But the video will give you a good idea of what the feature can do and how easy it is to use. 

Remember a video may be available for your machine.  You can look to see if there are videos for your machine by going to the support page for your machine and looking for the video tab.  If the video tab is there check for a video on Mixed Size Originals.

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