Choosing the Right Printer for PDF-XChange Tasks - Should I Buy Printers Online?

[jemmymark]

Hey everyone, I’m planning to upgrade my home office setup and was wondering if anyone here has experience using printers that work best with PDF-XChange software. I often deal with heavy PDF editing and scanning tasks. Should I buy printers online or look for something specific in local stores to ensure better compatibility and support? Any advice or recommendations?

[Dimitar - PDF-XChange]

Hello jemmymark,

All printers and multifunctional devices are working fine with our PDF Editor.

For those who are facing issues, please enable this:

image.png

In my office, I use Canon, Brother, and an old HP LaserJet ( new HPs are not quite good for various reasons).


You may want to avoid Ricoh.


Regards.

[PHK]

I just this week had to replace a printer. It was very painful in that it still had about 60% of life left in the toner cartridges and all the other replaceables were in very good condition. But I did buy on line. Amazon has a poor selection and they tend to be expensive. I wound up buying from staples.com after visiting a store. The store did not have a great selection (on line much better) and I would have had to schlep it home. Shipping was free and next day. I bought the cheapest I could find (just over $300 with tax), a Brother. My cynical view is that the machines are all pretty much the same although I am sure some brand loyalists will disagree. These days, they are all pretty much WiFi enabled or network capable.

After many years of using "All-in-one" printer/scanner combinations, I have sworn off those. In my experience, either the printer of these things dies or the scanner packs up but never at the same time. Therefore, you replacing two units (all-in-one) when you only need one. Now, my scanner and printers are separate devices not siamesed to each other and I can (and do) replace only the failed unit as necessary.

But definitely buy on line.

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello,

I did a few years in printer sales in the past (for home use models at least). So while my information may be outdated on current models, I can advise that if you wanted better "photo" quality, as the cost of more expensive ink, and a need for special gauges of paper, Epson devices are generally one of the better choices. Canon and HP are good middle ground choices, with Canon slightly closer to a photo quality, HP is slightly closer to "document" quality. Of those three, I believe the All-in-one units Canon made (at the time) were usually of better quality. Brother on the other hand is much more "document" focused, and its image quality is a bit lacking in comparison to the others - however, it has a nice advantage in being of the least expensive for long time running costs, like ink or toner, provided you are using it semi-frequently to avoid having the material "dry out/expire".

From the Editor's Point of view, we do what we can to work with as many devices as possible. There are some special options we have created, targeted at printers like HP (line width mode) and Ricoh (print isolation mode), both can help with some other brands in special cases. These options are available from the advanced print options.
Beyond that, while not a unique issue to our software, I share the opinion that All-in-one printers have a tendency to see "half" of the machine give out before the other is ready to go, and would probably advise to consider two separate devices.

As for purchasing online or in person, that choice is entirely yours. Many physical stores will have a more limited selection, but you can always compare the prices there, to what you see online for the same model, and make your choice based on that.

Kind regards,

[hibavelmet123]

Hii,

You raise a great point about the hidden cost of replacing a printer. Having toner cartridges and other consumables with plenty of life remaining can make an unexpected replacement especially frustrating.

I've also found that buying online generally offers a much wider selection and better pricing than local stores, particularly for home office and small business printers. While most modern printers now support Wi-Fi and network printing, there can still be significant differences in reliability, print quality, scanning features, and long-term operating costs.

Brother printers tend to have a strong reputation for document-heavy workloads and reasonable toner costs, which makes them a popular choice for home offices. For anyone using PDF-XChange extensively, I'd recommend paying close attention to scanning speed, automatic document feeder (ADF) support, and driver stability, as those features can have a bigger impact on productivity than the printer brand itself.

[Sean - PDF-XChange]

Hi hibavelmet123,

Thanks for your input here.

Kind regards,

[PHK]

After going through probably half a dozen combination printer/scanners I have concluded that they are a waste of time and money. I now buy printers separately from scanners. That is because I find that the two functionalities never fail and require replacement at the same time. In other words, I hate throwing away a good scanner just because I am replacing the printer and vice versa. There are many good scan-only devices on the market and they tend to be pretty reliable in my use. Actually, I've never had one fail. Printers, on the other hand, come and go. Something always goes wrong and they are not that expensive to replace especially when you consider that a new one comes with new toner. So, the carcass alone is pretty cheap net of the cost of the toner.

The combination units were initally sold on the basis that they were all-in-one, implying space saving. However, now most printers are BlueTooth capable so they are no longer tethered to your computer and they don't have to live on your valuable desk space. And there are very good compact duplex scanners that take up much less desk space than a printer, especially if you do not need a combination flatbed/sheet feed scanner. Finally, buying separate printers and scanners do not have to be much more expensive than equivalent combo units. Certainly over a twenty-year period, one scanner and 3 to 5 printers (my experience) is less costly than 3 to 5 combination units.

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]