Photocopier & Printing Glossary A–Z

Quotes and lease agreements are full of terms that nobody explains. Here are 56 of them in plain English — so you know exactly what you're signing and what you're paying for.

Leasing & finance14Costs & billing7Machine features15Consumables & parts6Service & support7Print management & security7

5

5% Coverage: The industry-standard assumption that a typical page has ink or toner on 5% of its surface — roughly a page of ordinary text. Toner yields and click charges are quoted against this benchmark.

A

A3 and A4: Standard UK paper sizes. A4 is the everyday office sheet; A3 is twice the size, used for plans, posters and folded booklets. A3-capable machines cost more but handle both.
Automatic Document FeederADF: The tray on top of a copier that pulls in a stack of originals so you can copy or scan multiple pages without lifting the lid each time.

B

Booklet Maker: A finishing unit that folds and staples pages down the centre to produce booklets. Useful for organisations producing their own brochures, reports or programmes in-house.
Break Clause: A term in the agreement allowing you to end the lease early under defined conditions. Many photocopier leases have no break clause at all, so it is worth asking before you sign.
Buyout: Paying a lump sum to take ownership of a leased machine, either at the end of the term or partway through. Also used to describe a new supplier paying off your existing agreement so you can switch.
Bypass Tray: A fold-down side tray for one-off jobs on unusual paper — envelopes, labels, card or letterhead — without unloading a main cassette.

C

Capital Allowance: Tax relief available when a business buys equipment outright. Because leasing is a rental rather than a purchase, lease payments are typically treated as an operating expense instead — your accountant can confirm which suits you.
Click ChargeCost per click: The amount you pay per page printed, typically fractions of a penny for black and white and a few pence for colour. It covers toner, servicing, parts and engineer call-outs.
Cost Per CopyCPC: The all-in cost of producing a single printed page, including toner, servicing, parts and a share of the hardware cost. The most reliable way to compare two quotes fairly.

D

DPIDots Per Inch: A measure of print resolution — how many dots the machine places per inch. 600 dpi is standard for office documents; higher resolutions matter mainly for photographs and fine graphics.
Device Security: Protecting the copier itself — encrypting its hard drive, wiping stored jobs, changing default admin passwords and keeping firmware current. Modern MFPs are networked computers and need treating as such.
Drum Unit: The photosensitive cylinder that picks up toner and transfers it to the paper. It wears out more slowly than toner and is replaced every several toner cartridges.
Duplex Printing: Printing on both sides of a sheet automatically. Setting duplex as the default is the quickest way to cut paper use, often by close to half.
Duty Cycle: The maximum number of pages a machine can handle per month without excess wear. Running consistently near the duty cycle shortens a machine's life — most suppliers size a copier well below it.

E

End of Lease Options: What you can do when a lease term finishes: return the machine, buy it, extend the agreement at a reduced rate, or upgrade to a newer model on a fresh lease.

F

Fair Wear and Tear: The condition a leased machine is expected to be returned in — normal ageing accepted, damage and missing parts not. Worth clarifying in writing at the start of a lease, not the end.
Finance Lease: A lease that covers most of the equipment's useful life, where you take on the risks and rewards of ownership in all but name. Payments are higher than an operating lease, but you usually have the option to keep the machine cheaply at the end.
Finisher: An attachment that sorts, staples, hole-punches or offsets output as it leaves the machine. Saves considerable manual handling in offices producing regular document sets.
First Copy Out Time: How long a machine takes to deliver the first page after you press go, measured from standby. A better indicator of everyday feel than raw speed if you mostly print short jobs.
Follow-Me PrintingPull printing: Jobs are held on the server until you release them at any machine with a card or PIN. Cuts waste from forgotten print jobs and stops documents sitting in the output tray.
Fuser Unit: The heated rollers that bond toner permanently to the paper. Fusers are a wear part with a defined page life, replaced during routine servicing.

G

GSMGrams per square metre: Paper weight. Standard office paper is 80gsm; letterheads are often 100–120gsm, and card runs from around 160gsm up. Every machine has a maximum weight it can handle reliably.

I

Inclusive Agreement: A service contract where toner, parts, labour and call-outs are all covered by the click charge. The alternative is buying consumables separately and paying for engineer visits as they happen.

L

Lease Agreement: The contract between your business and the finance company setting out the monthly payment, the term, what happens at the end, and the conditions for cancelling or upgrading.

M

Managed Print ServicesMPS: An arrangement where a supplier takes responsibility for your whole print estate — machines, consumables, servicing and monitoring — for a predictable monthly cost.
Meter Reading: The count of pages a machine has printed, used to calculate your service billing. Modern copiers submit readings automatically; older ones may need you to send them in each quarter.
Minimum Term: The committed length of a lease — commonly 36, 48 or 60 months. Ending the agreement before the minimum term is up normally means paying off the remaining payments.
Minimum Volume Commitment: A contracted number of pages you pay for each period whether you print them or not. Lowers the headline click rate, but costs you money if your actual volumes are lower.
Multifunction PrinterMFP / MFD: A single device that prints, copies, scans and often faxes. Almost all modern office photocopiers are MFPs — cheaper and simpler than running separate machines for each job.

O

OCROptical Character Recognition: Software that reads text in a scanned image and turns it into searchable, editable text — turning a scanned PDF from a picture into a document you can search.
Operating Lease: A lease where you rent the equipment for a period shorter than its useful life and hand it back at the end. Monthly payments are lower because you are only paying for the part of the machine's life you use.

P

Pages Per MinutePPM: How many A4 pages a machine prints in a minute — the headline speed figure. Office copiers typically range from around 20ppm for a small desktop unit to 75ppm or more for high-volume floor-standing machines.
Paper Tray: A loadable paper cassette. More trays mean more sizes and stocks available without swapping paper — typically A4 plain, A4 headed and A3.
Personal Guarantee: A commitment by a company director to cover the lease payments personally if the business cannot. Sometimes requested from newer or smaller companies — read carefully before signing.
Photocopier Leasing: An agreement to pay a fixed monthly amount to use a photocopier over an agreed term, rather than buying it outright. The finance company owns the machine; you get the use of it, usually with servicing and toner bundled in.
Photocopier Rental: A short-term hire agreement, often from a few weeks to 12 months. More expensive per month than a lease, but useful for temporary offices, projects and cover for a machine being repaired.
Preventative Maintenance: Scheduled servicing that replaces wear parts before they fail, rather than waiting for a breakdown. The main reason leased machines on inclusive contracts tend to be more reliable than owned ones.
Print Quota: Limits or rules applied per user or department — for example capping colour printing, or forcing duplex by default. A standard tool for bringing print costs down without buying anything.

R

Recommended Monthly Volume: The page count a machine is designed to produce comfortably each month. Unlike the duty cycle, this is the figure you should actually size against.
Reconditioned Photocopier: A used machine stripped, repaired, tested and returned to a reliable working standard, usually with a warranty. A lower-cost route to a capable machine than buying new.
Remote Monitoring: Software that reports a machine's status, meter readings and toner levels back to the supplier automatically — so consumables arrive before you run out and faults are often known about before you report them.
Residual Value: The estimated worth of the photocopier at the end of the lease term. A higher residual value lowers your monthly payments, because you are financing less of the machine's total cost.
Response Time: How long a supplier commits to take to attend a breakdown, commonly quoted in working hours. Check whether the promise is to attend or to fix — they are not the same.

S

Scan to Email: Scanning a document at the copier and sending it straight to an email address or network folder, without going via a PC.
Secure Print: Holding a print job until the sender authenticates at the device, so confidential documents are never left uncollected. Often a requirement for handling personal or financial data.
Service Level AgreementSLA: The documented commitment on how quickly a supplier will respond when something goes wrong, and what is covered. The part of a contract that matters most on the day the machine stops.
Settlement Figure: The amount required to close a lease early — usually the remaining payments, sometimes with a discount for early settlement. Always request this in writing before agreeing to switch supplier.
Staple Cartridge: The refill for a finisher's stapling unit. Usually supplied as part of an inclusive service agreement alongside toner.

T

Toner: The fine powder that forms the image on the page in a laser printer or copier. It is fused to the paper with heat rather than absorbed like ink, which is why laser output does not smudge.
Total Cost of OwnershipTCO: Everything a machine costs across its life — lease payments, click charges, consumables, energy, support and disposal — not just the purchase price or monthly figure.
Transfer Belt: In a colour machine, the belt carrying the four toner colours to the paper in register. A wear part replaced periodically as part of preventative maintenance.

U

Upgrade Clause: A provision allowing you to move to a different machine during the lease, usually by rolling the remaining balance into a new agreement. Convenient, but check how much of the old balance is being carried over.
Uptime: The proportion of time a machine is available and working. A well-maintained office copier on an inclusive agreement should comfortably exceed 98%.

W

Warm-Up Time: How long a copier takes to become ready from cold or from deep sleep. Shorter warm-up times mean less standing about first thing in the morning.
Waste Toner Bottle: A container collecting toner left over from the printing process. When it fills, the machine stops until it is emptied or swapped — a routine consumable, not a fault.

Photocopier & printing jargon, explained

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