Colortrac UPDATE
Published by the Sales & Marketing Department, Colortrac Ltd, England UK E&OE, all rights reserved  23/05/2005
Tel: 00 44 (0)1480 464618 Web: colortrac.com  News or comment / items for inclusion?  Please send to info@colortrac.com
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the newsletter for Colortrac users everywhere
Left to right: George Helser (for Colortrac), Peter de Winter Brown (Sales Director Colortrac), Roger Ilgen(GEI), Dick Rex (GEI), Rolland Henderson (for Colortrac).
www.geiworldwide.com

Roger Ilgen is the new sales director at GEI bringing 30+ years sales experience and dealer channel knowledge from Xerox USA.  Dick Rex is the former President and CEO of Vidar Corp. and will provide a
focus at GEI for LF scanner marketing and business management.

The photo was taken after meeting with GEI to review and plan marketing and sales activity for the second half of 2005.
French Colortrac distributor Diatrace, www.diatrace.com  have chosen SmartLF as Product of the year. Diatrace have for many years sold lots of printers from several brands but found it difficult to earn money since margins are so slim. With SmartLF it is possible for both salesmen and dealers to actually earn money while selling hardware. Diatrace are therefore pushing SmartLF very ggressively. Bundles with printers like Canon W7200 and HPDesignJet 800 or 500 plus SmartLF and CopySmart for under Euro 10 000 (about USD 12 280) is attractive in the French market. Diatrace find that customers who for years have stuck with only small format, now for the first time invest in large format solutions since the price has come down and made it a worthwhile investment.  Thus SmartLF not only provides for a new scanner sale, it also provides for sale of printer, paper and ink. Diatrace sales volume of SmartLF is double that previously seen as the total market for all brands  of scanner in France, clear proof of an expansion of the market.

Diatrace are a big consumables supplier and have cleverly added the line, "Turn your printer into a copier by adding a SmartLF scanner" to the large number of invoices and packing lists they send out every month. Diatrace have also provided demo-scanners to all their salesmen outside of Paris. Mr. Boucher, MD for Diatrace, says: "SmartLF might be 'Product of the Year' next year as well!"
The Colortrac CCD based S4e open aperture scanner continues to be a firm favorite and remains highly competitive in the world market.  The main advantage of this scanner design is the high quality of colour output achievable from the CCDs and lenses and the no-nonsense open aperture system which reduces glass maintenance and cleaning.
JULY 2005 EDITION
After some delays which were beyond our control, the internal Canon drivers for the CopyWorks and CopySmart copying products are now available and ready for download.  The drivers can be obtained from the distributor support site for the respective models.

http://www.colortrac.com/s4downloads
http://www.colortrac.com/smartdownloads
As always manufacturers reserve the right to change and improve their product at any time and Colortrac are no different with the SmartLF.  The SmartLF is already benefitting from a much stronger stand but v1.6 brings with it more enhancements to the main scanner.  These are:
  • Easier lid closure using single pair of locking locators
  • Reinforced lid and hinge arrangement
  • Paper hold down now adjustable through cover
  • Completely redesigned magnetic cover catch system
  • New sensor to glass system for easier glass replacement
  • New spring system and higher precision motored rollers
  • New paper hold down profile and coating
  • Clean, no screws lid fixings

Colortrac have recently introduced easy to use plastic scan wallets which are  perfect for scanning delicate or torn originals which cannot be taped prior to scanning.  Available to order with your scanner the wallets come in two sizes.  P002049 is large enough to take A0 size originals and a smaller size to take A1.  Made from tough polypropylene these wallets resist scratching and have a single opening along the longest edge.

P002048 - A1 polypropylene wallet long side opening, short side hanging (internal size 860mm x 606mm)
P002049 - A0 polypropylene wallet long side opening, short side hanging (internal size 1200mm x 875mm)

NOTE: These wallets are not quite large enough to take full D and E size drawings
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The A0 size is defined as having an area of one square metre (1m²). This allows paper weights to be expressed in grams per square metre or GSM.
Each smaller sheet size is exactly half the area of the previous size. ie. If you cut an A0 sheet in half you get two A1 sheets; If you cut an A1 sheet in half you get two A2 sheets; and so on ...
Also each longer side of an ISO sheet size is exactly 1.414 (or √2) times the shorter side.  Neat huh!
The new imagePrograf range from Canon boasts a doubling of the resolution without impacting much on printing speeds - courtesy of new electronics.  Also these printers feature new inks in particular a better yellow which dramatically improves the reproduction of reds in a print.
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Wherever possible always try to scan along the longest edge first of a landscape original - i.e. use the width of the scanner.  This not only improves the grip of the scanner on the document (reducing skew) but also avoids the need to rotate the document in the computer.  Also because the longest edge of the document comes in contact with the maximum number of rollers the document will generally be easier to load.
When using the polyester wallets it may be necessary to increase the brightness and saturation settings in ScanWorks to compensate for the opacity of the wallet.
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The polyester wallet is best stored by hanging vertically using the reinforced hanging strip on a hook or alternatively by laying it flat in a drawing chest or similar.