What Does Collate Mean When Printing: An Overview

Printing out multiple copies of a document is often a necessary part of a document’s life cycle. Whether you need to share copies of documents with colleagues or hand out a brochure to potential customers. Having everything in order makes any job easier and faster. This is where collate comes into play.

What is Collate When Printing?

In general terms, collate is the ability of a printer to group and order the pages of a document prior to printing. When you collate a document, you are essentially organizing the pages so that each individual copy will have all of its pages in the correct order. While this concept is simple enough for most users, it’s worth noting that it’s an important factor in achieving quality results.

Why Is Collate Important?

When dealing with multiple page documents, it’s usually necessary to have them all in the correct order. To put it simply, the last thing you want is the the last page appears at the beginning of some copies while the first page appears at the end in others. With collate, you can be sure that all of your copies will be complete and in the right order.

Collating documents can also be incredibly useful when it comes to large documents, like books. Collating a large number of pages ensures that, when the pages are bound together, the correct page will appear in the correct order. Without this feature, not only would printing a large document be more time consuming, it would also be more expensive.

Conclusion

Collate is an incredibly useful feature in any printer, regardless of its size or capabilities. Whether you’re printing out receipts or ordering books, collating your pages is a must if you want to guarantee you’re getting your prints exactly as you need them.