Wide Format Imaging

The debate over whether to charge for digital services is evolving into a "how" and "what" issue now. A guide to charging for digital services was adopted by The International Reprographic Association (IRgA) in January, 2007, and includes what digital services typically charge and best practices for reprographers and reprographic customers.

Charles A. Gremillion III, who chaired the IRgA committee, gave his rationalization: "Anything that is free has no value and if we're providing digital services that are free, in the customer's mind, it has no value. Until you charge for it, that's when it starts to register value in [the customer's] mind."

Some digital services seldom have charges. Missing fonts are one example, said Curtis Thornton, director of product development and corporate learning for Thomas Reprographics. But what about when customer-selected colors are not accurate or graphics are too low-resolution?

"If we have to go in and fix it or go find the graphics for them or go back into our archives," Thornton said, "those are the type of things that need to be charged."

A high percentage of files need some setup work to print properly, hence the need to charge for digital work.

"Most everything involves some intervention," Gremillion said. "You do, occasionally, get some work from customers that you can send straight to the printer, but that's more the exception rather than the rule."

Sometimes the major challenge is deciding what digital services warrant charges. Thornton gives the examples of fixing files when a customer has an older version of software or the customer may not know how to prepare files. Eventually, production may complain to sales about the extra time processing this customer's files.