# Totally mundane and pointless (copier stupidity) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 29, 2008, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-mundane-and-pointless-copier-stupidity/470110 "2008-10-29T16:50:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2008, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-mundane-and-pointless-copier-stupidity/470110/1 "2008-10-29T16:50:23Z")
This morning the new girl in the office came to me with a copier problem. seems no matter what she did, the copier would not photocopy in color. Hmm - it’s easy, I said, “quality adjustment, full color, go!” Nothing. So I came over to look. Turns out the girl was putting a black and white printout in the copier and expecting the copier to make it color. :smack: I don’t know how I didn’t laugh in her face. I very gently said, “no, you have to print it out in color first, on our color printer. It doesn’t put color in for you.” Just wanted to share. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2008, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-mundane-and-pointless-copier-stupidity/470110/2 "2008-10-29T17:03:38Z")
Heh. Heeheehee. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh, that’s good. That’s like the mucky-muck who was trying to photocopy something for himself one day, and it was coming out blank. I moved the document to the corner that was indicated as the place to put your document, and it worked just fine then. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2008, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-mundane-and-pointless-copier-stupidity/470110/3 "2008-10-29T19:00:48Z")
Here’s a better one - she then complained the color printer wasn’t working, either. I was wary this time and asked if the original document was in color. Indeed it was not. I told her there is no machine in the world that can take your black and white document and make it color. She said, “Well, what is the point of a color printer then?” I actually had to explain to her that it was for printing documents already in color. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2008, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-mundane-and-pointless-copier-stupidity/470110/4 "2008-10-29T19:06:13Z")
Ooh, you had a great opportunity there to truly mess with her. “The point of the colour printer is to print extra money when you don’t have enough” or “the point of the colour printer is to print out your porn in true-to-life colours.” You might not want to get her arrested or fired yet, but it’s looking like you’re gonna. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![CAT\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@CAT\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CAT_1)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2008, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-mundane-and-pointless-copier-stupidity/470110/5 "2008-10-29T19:18:29Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > Here’s a better one - she then complained the color printer wasn’t working, either. I was wary this time and asked if the original document was in color. Indeed it was not. I told her there is no machine in the world that can take your black and white document and make it color. She said, “Well, what is the point of a color printer then?” I actually had to explain to her that it was for printing documents already in color. It makes me wonder how she thinks the copier will randomly decide which colors to put where! ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2008, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-mundane-and-pointless-copier-stupidity/470110/6 "2008-10-29T19:37:54Z")
> [@CAT\_1](#): > > It makes me wonder how she thinks the copier will randomly decide which colors to put where! It’s the Ted Turner Movie Colorizing Copier! ---
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2008, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-mundane-and-pointless-copier-stupidity/470110/7 "2008-10-29T20:17:25Z")
Hate to nitpick, but one of our offices just leased a [Canon 5185i](http://www.usa.canon.com/opd/controller?act=OPDSpecificationsAct&fcategoryid=2172&modelid=15400) color printer/copier/fax unit. One of the features demonstrated by the rep was the ability to take a B/W original and print it in a variety of colors. Everyone was WOW!. I’m WTF, whatever. Knock yourselves out. Admitted, it’s not taking a picture of a beach and colorizing it, but it is definately going from B/W to color. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2008, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-mundane-and-pointless-copier-stupidity/470110/8 "2008-10-29T20:19:29Z")
Ah…that’s pretty freaking awesome, and I never knew such a thing existed. Regardless, it’s hardly common. How does it know what colors you want it in? ---
**Author:** ![Tupug\_Anachi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@Tupug\_Anachi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tupug_Anachi)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2008, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-mundane-and-pointless-copier-stupidity/470110/9 "2008-10-29T20:45:01Z")
Erm… Is she blond??? What? Somebody was going to ask! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2008, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-mundane-and-pointless-copier-stupidity/470110/10 "2008-10-30T14:56:16Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > Ah…that’s pretty freaking awesome, and I never knew such a thing existed. Regardless, it’s hardly common. How does it know what colors you want it in? I wasn’t really paying attention, but I assume there’s a way to pick the color you want from the control panel. I just remember him using a B/W original and it spitting out a red copy, then a green one. Everyone went oohh and aahh and I’ll bet that feature hasn’t been used since. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2008, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-mundane-and-pointless-copier-stupidity/470110/11 "2008-10-30T15:06:19Z")
[Is this her?](http://www.rogerswebsite.com/Humour/38%20-%20How%20do%20Blondes%20print%20a%20Word%20document.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Some\_FNG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/48db29/32.png) [@Some\_FNG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Some_FNG)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2008, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-mundane-and-pointless-copier-stupidity/470110/12 "2008-10-30T15:20:38Z")
Some years ago I had a managing editor who demanded to know why a certain assignment’s photos weren’t in color… as she stood there looking at the B/W negs on the light table. Over the years I’ve worked with a number of J-School grads who might have made better idiots than journalists because they have brought me greyscale art and wanted it reproduced in the paper as a color image. They get a blank look when I say that “Sure, it’ll be a CMYK file, but still in black and white.” :dubious: Our paper recently bought an new multi-million dollar press and we were going through the nightmare of trying to cross-calibrate the press, our pre-press monitors and all of the photography monitors so that what we see on screen during the correction/toning process is accurately reproduced in print. To help this along, we print a neutral grey bar along the bottom of each color page to help the press gang adjust their inks. Invariably we get the call from the pressroom that we photogs have been toning all of our photos wrong, that we don’t know what we’re doing and that henceforth ALL PHOTOS WILL BE TONED BY THE PRESSROOM. Pissed off , we all gather in the conference room for a Come-to-Jesus meeting with everyone involved in the process. Harsh words are hurled, insults thrown and integrities are questioned. When it was pointed out that the problem couldn’t possibly be our fault, the press gang went ape-shit. And then someone pointed to the printed grey bar for the last several days of production… instead of it being a lovely 18% grey, it was kind of purplish-brown and dark. Point made and the newsroom for the win. FWIW, the press still prints off color and the press gang insists that it is our fault!:smack: ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2008, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-mundane-and-pointless-copier-stupidity/470110/13 "2008-10-30T16:33:36Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > Ah…that’s pretty freaking awesome, and I never knew such a thing existed. Regardless, it’s hardly common. How does it know what colors you want it in? **Anaamika** , if you have Irfanview, open a b/w picture. Go to Image/Enhance Colors (or Shift+G) and play with the three RGB bars. Look, it’s got color! But only one. It doesn’t colorize… it produces results similar to what you’d get if you print in a four-color printer when one of the colored inks is empty.