Venture Computer, the sole distributor for Lexmark International in Southern Africa today announced its plans for helping customers tackle the conversion to the Euro as it relates to printing.
European and international companies conducting business with Europe are faced with many challenges as a result of the conversion. With the majority of business communications being paper based, companies will need to print the Euro symbol on invoices, contracts, payroll and any other function that involves a mention of currency. At a minimum, new screen and printer fonts are needed to reproduce the Euro symbol.
Lexmark is offering customers a variety of options when converting to the Euro:
New printers -- Lexmark is providing Euro printing solutions for the majority of its current products immediately. The Optra Se 3455 has been Euro-enabled since its introduction and all future printer products announced by Lexmark will be Euro-enabled. The Lexmark Optra S family of printers, the Optra Color 1200 and the Optra Color 45 printers, manufactured by Lexmark in 1999, are also Euro-enabled.
Upgrades for existing Lexmark printers -- Lexmark provides thirteen different kits that allow end users to have Euro support in a significant number of printers the company has shipped since 1994. These kits, are available through authorized resellers, and include Firmware upgrades with new printer drivers and fonts on a CD, Flash memory SIMM`s with downloadable fonts, and new printer drivers and fonts on CDs.
For existing Lexmark inkjet printers -- Current Lexmark Color Jetprinters 1100, 3200, 5700, 5770 and 7000 will support the Euro from Microsoft Windows 98, or with Microsoft updates applied from Windows 95 or Windows NT 4.0. Most discontinued Lexmark colour inkjet`s also will support the Euro in the same manner.
Venture Computer will also offer consulting services to companies that need assistance with printing strategies in relation to the Euro conversion. "Venture Computer and Lexmark are dedicated to understanding the needs of its customers and providing them with technology solutions that make it easy for them to do business,`` said Richard Fearon, sales and marketing director at Venture Computer. "The Euro conversion is an example of our commitment, since we recognise that this project maybe a major undertaking.
Additionally, Agfa, which has provided its leading-edge printer font solutions to Lexmark customers world-wide since 1991, will incorporate an optimised Euro symbol into each of the up to 75 typestyles, not just a single character design for all typestyles. These typestyles were built into the Lexmark Optra Se 3455, and will be built into all future Optra printers. Also, Agfa is able to provide other fonts specially designed with Euro characters to match corporate typestyles. Agfa provides its industry-leading Universal Font Scaling Technology (UFST)(TM) to Lexmark customers. This solution includes font support for both the PostScript ® and PCL ® page description languages, and offers customers consistent font support in both emulations. Additionally, Agfa`s MicroType(TM) font compression technology gives customers greater type solutions with less memory requirements, whilst assuring the highest level of print quality output.
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Venture Computer
Venture Computer is the sole distributor in South Africa for Lexmark; and Tally; products including consumables, with offices in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and Port Elizabeth. They were chosen by CRNSA readers as "Distributor of the Year" in 1996, 1997 and in 1998.
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