What Does Bi-Directional Mean?
In older printers information is only able to travel in one direction, from your computer or print server to the printer. A Bi-Directional Printer is able to send information back to the print server or computer that submitted the print job. On large printer networks Bi Directional Printers allow administrators to check the printers status, page counts, error messages etc from a central location, reducing network printing costs. If your print server doesn’t include Bi-Directional support then you’ll have problems running most printer monitoring software from HP, Epson, Linksys, Canon, Xerox and others. Printers are a lot more complicated than they were 10 years ago and need to report as much information as they can back to the user as they can. You need to know when your printer’s out of paper or the Toner needs Replacing.
