12 reasons why you still need a printer

"I have been in business for 15 years, and there hasn't been a day that we haven't used our printer. Anyone who ships a lot of packages needs to create a master scan form to give to the pickup driver, so they don't have to manually scan every package.

We print these forms at the end of the day, so the USPS or FedEx driver doesn't have to sit in our office scanning hundreds of packages every day.

If we didn't have a printer to print this form, our pickup drivers wouldn't enjoy coming to our office. We don't need to have a color printer, but a quality laser printer that will start to print the first page quickly."

"We'd be lost without our printer at my medical practice. One of the biggest ways we use it is to print before-and-after photos of my hair restoration patients' results. Sure, you can view them on a screen, but it just doesn't pack as big of a punch as holding the photos in your hand. We also use it to make signage as needed around the office rather than putting up handwritten notes. I really think a printer plays a big role in differentiating between amateur and pro status for businesses."

"In our business, a printer is still and will always be essential even though we have gone digital or paperless.

The reason is, although we do not really need it for communication within the organization, it is still essential to have a paper version of a document to conduct business with our partners and customers who prefer to have some type of printed document. We can use the printer to print invoices for clients or customers, and scan and make copies of documents that we receive on paper to convert them to a digital version.

It makes our business more professional too because we are not entirely dependent on the digital version when communicating with clients, customers and our business partners."

"Having a quality printer in our main office space has been a great addition for us, it allows us to improve the quality of our work for clients. We run an e-commerce marketing agency and spend a lot of time writing web content for various retail brands — this content needs to catch a reader's attention and be engaging.

We've found that printing the content we create for the editing process is so much more effective than trying to edit and improve it digitally on a computer screen. It's actually much easier to read something on a piece of paper and put yourself in the shoes of a potential customer to see how they'd respond to it.

Printing out our work for the editing stage means the online content we end up creating for various e-commerce stores is just much higher quality overall."

"There is no substitute for a printed-on-paper document. These could be legal documents or other paperwork containing critical information, in that case we do not want to rely on digital media to provide foolproof preservation.

Using prints for these documents promotes trust among our customers. We have many clients who are not technically savvy and prefer dealing with printed documents over digital media. Additionally, our company has internal documents which we use in printed formats, such as employee handbooks, training materials and procedure manuals.

A good printer is always handy to print out marketing materials such as flyers, brochures, and business cards in-house, saving time and money, giving us a great deal of flexibility for our employees and their work.

Having a good printer in our small business improves our efficiency, streamlines operations and imparts professionalism in our work."

"I still use a printer as I work from home and run a small business. Some people ask me why I need it, and sometimes I wonder if I'm "odd" for still using one, but I see the benefits.

I run a few different companies, so having things printed and sorted in their respective places helps keep me organized. I can print two things for separate companies and keep them separate physically, which also helps keep me organized and on track.

I like seeing things in a fresh setting — off the screen. When I edit long-form content, go over client proposals, and review documents, I sometimes need to see it in physical form. With a pen and printed copy, I'm able to review it in a different light, which often helps me produce better content.

Just like reading an actual book compared to reading on a tablet or Kindle, I like the perspective it provides when I can print something. It's something I've been doing for a while and will continue to do."