Can I Get A Copier that will Half Fold with No Staple?

You want what? Seems every appointment brings new questions as to what a copier (MFP aka MFD) can and can't do. When I first started selling copiers, prospects and existing customer were elated when they found out that the copier did not have a moving platen (glass top that moved back and forth with every copy). The same was true when told them that the copier would also be able to reduce or enlarge an image. At one time prospects expected nothing more from a copier that it would just produce acceptable copies.

Just last week I was in a prospects office going over some of the new features of the Ricoh Color Metis (03 series) MPC6003 system. As I was pointing out the specifications of the booklet maker, the customer asked if they would be able to print or copy a document and just have it folded with no staple?

Now, I'd just like to back track about ten or more years ago and answer that question. My answer would have been YES, however....we would need to "jury rig" the stapler, which meant that we would put a piece of black tape over the stapler sensor and thus you would get a document or copiers that were folded with no staple. Along with that you could not just print or copy one sheet, you would have to print or copy more than one page. For those of us that remember this, this was an awesome work around for some users, but most users would not find this acceptable.

Back to answering the prospects question! YES, our new Ricoh Metis series can perform a half fold of a single sheet of paper (with the 1,000 sheet booklet maker) or up to 5 sheets of paper (with the 2,000 sheet booklet maker) with no stapling! The process of folding multi sheets is also know as nesting. It's awesome that these new systems allows for the finished production of non stapled newsletters, menus, and invitations. Which is a tremendous time saver now that a user does not have to do this manually. In the past if you wanted to have a copier fold a piece of media (substrate) you would have had to include a folding unit, folding units are usually reserved the larger production systems.

There was also another feature that the prospected liked about the Ricoh Metis and that was the "Flat Fold" feature. When you're producing lets say a 60 page booklet, which means you are using 15 sheets of paper with two pages on one side and two pages on the other side. If you did not have the "flat fold" feature the booklets would have a large bow at the side where the booklet was stapled. The "flat fold" feature on the Ricoh Metis 03 series eliminates to bow to make a much neater appearance and allows for users to stack more booklets for packing, wrapping or shipping.