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If you have an office printer, you may not need a copier at all. You simply print a few extra and you’re done. But for larger volumes, and in particular for copying documents that you didn’t create, a copier is indispensable.

But with so many types and brands on the market, which to choose?

Cost is a constraint for every business. For a plain black-and-white desktop copier you might outlay as little as $50. Larger color models may be as high as a few thousand dollars. But be sure to consider the long term costs, not just the initial purchase price. Lack of reliability increases downtime and repair costs that may have to be paid for.

Before you can even think about the price, though, you have to decide which type of copier best suits your needs. The choices are roughly: desktop, stand-alone or multi-function.

A desktop copier is about the size of a personal printer. Some personal printers have the ability to copy as well. Depending on the model, it may be single sheet feed or have a capacity of only a few pages. How much time do you want to spend feeding the copier? That depends on whether you copy a page occasionally, or feed the machine often. You will generally pay more for a larger capacity.

Desktop copiers also have a smaller output capacity, both in terms of speed and expected lifetime. In other words, they take longer to make an individual copy and they wear out sooner than larger models. That may suit you fine if your needs are small.

A larger or stand-alone copier often has a moving platen. That means that the copier doesn’t merely scan the page where you placed it and spit out the copy. It moves the original through the machine. More moving parts can lead to more repairs, depending on the reliability of the model.

But the risk of increased repairs is offset somewhat by the greatly expanded feature set of larger copier models.

They can typically copy much faster. A desktop copier may take as long as 30 seconds to copy a single page, a larger model might do the same job in two.

Also, larger models are able to produce many more copies more conveniently. A desktop copier will typically make no more than 30 copies or so before it has to be either filled with paper or emptied. A larger model will hold several hundred sheets and output almost as many before it requires attendance.

Check the monthly duty cycle and compare the rated outputs. This number is the expected maximum number of copies made per month. It’s related to the odds of the machine breaking down or wearing out sooner. Exceeding the rated output ups the odds of the copier requiring maintenance or replacement sooner rather than later.

Other features can be important, too, depending on the type of copying required.

Is the ability to collate important? That allows the copier to output multiple sets in the proper order when fed a multiple-page document. Is duplexing needed? That’s the ability to copy both sides in one pass without manually moving the input page or turning over the copied pages in the hopper. How important is it to be able to use different sizes or types of paper? You may need to copy legal-sized documents, photos at high quality or more.

In the end, consider also the hassle factor. The annoyance (not to mention lost productivity) of having an unreliable copier often far outweighs the money spent. Think ahead about which one to get, so you can get one you don’t have to think about afterward.

Central or personal, hard or soft?

There are dozens of quality fax machines on the market. But before considering any of them, there are decisions to make. Should you get one that attaches only to your computer, or is it better to have a central fax system? Do you even need fax hardware, or should you use software on your own computer?

Part of the decision hinges, of course, on whether you have more than one worker in your office. There’s less point in spending extra money or time to have a separate fax machine when only one person will ever use it.

But even if you are a one-person office, you still need to consider whether to invest in extra hardware at all. One alternative option is to use the equipment attached to your computer, along with software to send or receive faxes.

The pros and cons of this alternative are easy to list.

For sending a fax of a document stored on your computer, it’s ultra-easy to use your existing phone line or Internet connection to ship it anywhere. Most Internet connections allow you to integrate a phone line if you use it to send or receive faxes. Software and sites are not hard to find to use web-based software to send a fax almost as easily as you would an email.

But, for sending, that assumes you already have the document stored in the form of a file on your computer. If you have to fax a hardcopy document the situation can get a little more tricky. A scanner can easily overcome that problem, though. If you have one, attach it to your system and scan the document. Then you’re in business just as before.

Receiving faxes is as simple as plugging your phone line into the modem built-in to your system and configuring software that comes with the operating system. If you need a hardcopy, you can easily print any received fax on your personal printer.

If you don’t already have a scanner or perhaps even a printer, though, the decision requires a little extra thought. In those cases, it may well be worthwhile to buy a separate fax machine. Models that combine printer/scanner/fax/copier features are perfect for this purpose.

That leads to the decision of whether to centralize. For an office with only two computers on a small network, it may still be less expensive (and simpler) to attach the fax to one or the other. For an office network with multiple computers it often is simpler to centralize. That means using either a network-attached fax machine or a standalone model.

Building one central server that provides printing, faxing, Internet and other services requires only modest expertise today and a modest additional investment. It can be used as a backup server as well to store documents that are saved, sent and received.

For many, the use of a standalone fax machine (sometimes in a fax/copier/scanner combination) remains the best option, though. It’s ultra-easy to implement and use and requires only a phone line to operate. There’s no need to install, configure or learn any special software.

Which approach to faxing is best will vary, of course, with personal circumstances. Give some thought ahead of time to your solution and you’ll be free to give almost none to it later on.