By Lina Martinez

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We use our printers for all sorts of reasons, and they’re crucial in any office workplace. Most of them come with a variety of features that we rarely get to the bottom of. Normally, we’re just interested in carrying out our most important printer duties. But, if we took the time to really learn about them, we might just find more creative possibilities.

1. Download Apps

Yes, some printers actually allow you the ability to download apps. This means that in-between your laborious waiting periods, you might be able to do a crossword, for example. There are also plenty of apps that can help to tailor your printing needs in more advanced ways. You won’t find this feature on every printer, but there are models that include this sort of thing on the market.

1. Make Magnets

Have you thought about doing this? Whether you’re playing around at home or working in a business environment, this might just come in useful. Magnetic sheets of paper can be bought for relatively low prices if you look around. Then, find a template-or-two for your Word document and get creative with what you make. Maybe it’s a badge? Maybe it’s a training tool? It’s up to you.

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1. Vastly Reduce Ink Costs

If you’re simply making do with the default settings out of the box, you could be losing a lot of money. Nearly every printer, from high-end Ricoh printers to lesser-known budget ones contain ink-saving features. Of course, the better the printer, the better this feature should theoretically be. You’ll find that this can be altered in the settings on the printer itself or via your device in some cases. Whether it’s reducing the quality of the font, making images less detailed or something else, the power’s in your hands.

1. Print Directly From Your Phone

Printers now come with the ability to print via WiFi, which is incredibly useful for business purposes in particular. Not only can we easily get access to a printer without using cables, but we can print from pretty much any device. So, even though you might not have your laptop to hand, you can connect to cloud storage and print from your phone. It’s amazing how much flexibility printers allow us these days.

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1. Hold Your Print In Memory For Later

For some, this might sound a little obvious. But, I’ve run into all sorts of business professionals over the years who didn’t know this was an option. On some printers, you’ll get the ability to store your print for later. This means that instead of rushing to the printer to collect your documents before they get jumbled with someone else's, you can wait. Once you’re ready, you can simply press a few buttons on the printer and your documents will be printed. It doesn’t matter how long you wish to wait. An awesome feature, for sure.

We know there are plenty of other fantastic things that printers can do that aren’t necessarily that well-known. We’d love to hear your experiences with this, so get involved and let us know your thoughts!