Is there a printer which doesn't cost an arm and a leg?

I produce a village magazine - 700 copies of six page A4 double sided.

Photocopying costs a fortune (and the pictures don't reproduce well). Is there a printer which could undertake this amount of output (four times a year) and work out cheaper than phtocopying?

Or would I have to sit over it all day to make sure it didn't jam!

Any comments would be most welcome.

Gerald

Printing double-sided requires a printer with a duplex-modul (not exactly cheap..)....unless you want to do it manually. Many printers have this as a builtin function in the siftware running the printer. You specify that you want double-sided printing and then the printer prints fx. all the odd-numbered pages, requests you to turn the printed paper stack around and reinsert it in the paper-in tray with a specific orientation and hit a button on your keyboard. Then the printing is resumed printing all the even-numbered pages on the reverse side of the paper.

So what you should look for is a printer in your price-class that has the siftware with this ability (The HP printers I've seen has this - dunno about other brands).
Producing 700 copies of 6 pages each will probably require a couple of tanks of ink. So you should check the price of replacement ink and maybe even consider using non-original replacement ink or refill the tanks yourself (works well for me so far...) to keep the cost down.

Thanks for your comment. Would you use a laser or an inkjet?

If you include pictures, you will need an inkjet. A laser which will do good pictures will be very dear. You might make up the costs with cheaper printing, but I should think it will take a long time. If you get the costs on refills, &c you can work it out.

If you're happy to print in monochrome, then you should definitely go for a laser - 8400 sheets a year is well within the duty cycle of even the cheapest laser printer, and the costs are orders of magnitude lower. The cheapest to run lasers (Kyocera) typically have running costs of 0.3p per page at 5% - my Brother laser is about 0.8p. You could easily be looking at 3-5p per page with an inkjet even if only printing in black & white, especially if you use the manufacturers own brand cartridges.

Colour lasers are becoming increasingly affardable - there's an HP that can be bought for around the £700 mark, and one or two others as well. You'd be looking at around 5p per page with a colour laser, and 3 times that with a colour inkjet.

There's also the issue of performance to consider - you could die of old age waiting for some inkjets to print (especially in colour) :D You can expect at least 10ppm from even a cheap mono laser (rather less for colour).

If you have regular and high overall volume throughout the year, a combination laser machine (copier/printer/fax) might be the most economical solution. If leased, it'll be a deductible business expense and certain servicing is included.
We use SAVIN over here in the US; but they actually are RICOH machines, and we are very happy with it.

As an alternative you could go to an outside print service. Depending on your desired quality, and again usage volume, that might even be better. (Total time etc. required)

You may want to invest in a small copier. You can get them cheap, you can find them at flea markets, yard sales, at local auctions of local companies that are selling out everything.

Just to give you an impression of the time involved:

Last week I printed a manual for some program. It was in pdf-format and around 100 pages. I printed it in automatic duplex (double-sided) mode on a G95 (BIG HP inkjet printer). The 50 pages took around 1 hour to print. It sounds like much - and it is - but running automatic duplex I could leave the printer alone and do the job while I crawled into some computercase to fix a problem.
In your case you could leave you printer printing over night - just make sure there's enough paper in the paper tray - and check it every second hour or so.

I absolutely agree that a monochrome laserprinter - or even copier - sounds like what you're looking for. A color-laser/copier will take you quite a while to return your investment on....but the result will sure be cool... :D

Thanks everyone for all your comments - I shall mull things over (and consult with the Vicar!)

Gerald