Using a Toshiba Photocopier to Scan Documents to PDF Files

If you've ever wanted to send a print document quickly to someone at a distance, you may be interested to know that your school photocopier provides a solution.  Most Chinook schools now have Toshiba photocopiers, and most of these photocopiers have the ability to scan print documents to PDF files.

This ability can prove very useful in a number of situations:

• You have a print document or drawing that you would like to email to another person.
• You have legal document that has required your signature, and you now need to send/return it quickly.
• You are using Kurzweil Reader and you need to scan an multi-page document to use within the program.
• You are a distance learning teacher, and you would like to return assignments that you have marked to your students.
• You are supervising distance learning students, and they need to submit a hand-written or hand-made assignment or test.

Of course, a number of these situation can be handled by fax; however, scanning to PDF provides several advantages over the fax machine:

• Speed:  Scaning a multi-page document takes seconds with the photocopier, minutes with the fax.
• Quality:  As a rule, print quality of a scanned file will be much better than that of a fax.
• Privacy:  When you send a fax, you have no idea who will pick it up on the receiving end, or how many eyes will see it before it reaches its destination.  By emailing a PDF file, you are sending it directly to the intended recipient.
• Universality:  Not everyone has a fax machine, but in this day and age, almost everyone has a personal email address.  
• Cost:  Long distance calls cost money.  International calls can be prohibitively expensive.  Emails can fly around for world for nothing.
• Multiple Destinations:  Suppose you need to send the same document to several people/locations.  With the fax machine, that translates into multiple calls, but you can send the document in a single email addressed to all the recipeients.
• Persistence and Auditing:  A recipient can misplace a fax or claim that he never received it, and you have no real means of proving that you sent it, or you might have misplaced it yourself (thinking that it had been dealt with) and have no way to re-send it.  By emailing a PDF, you will have a copy stored on your local hard drive or network share, and you will have a copy of the email you sent, complete with the attachment

If you are interested in learning more about using the photocopier to scan to PDF, the video tutorial below, will walk you through the process, from start to finish.

To check if your photocopier has the ability to scan to PDF, first check to see if it has a "Scan" button.  If it does, press the button.  If nothing happens, the scan feature is not enabled on your photocopier.  If you are taken to the "Scan" menu, you are away.