Friday FAQ: Printer Specifications for Mobile Notaries and Loan Signing Agents

*Full Transcription Below

Hey, good morning everybody. This is Bill Soroka, founder of NotaryCoach.com.

I'm kicking off this new series - Friday FAQ - live from Austin, Texas. This series is designed to answer some of the most common and frequently asked questions that notaries both brand new and seasoned ask repeatedly. I get these questions from our Tuesday Notary Titans call. I get them from email and from the coaching and mentor calls that I offer on the website NotaryCoach.com. So I thought it would be kind of cool to have a whole playlist every Friday where we can just talk about one of those most common questions.

Today I'm going talk about the printer specifications that you need to keep in mind when you're buying your first printer or upgrading your printer.

The first thing I want to talk about though, is what's expected whenever you print.

So the cool thing about working as a mobile notary and loan signing agent in particular, is that just about everything that you're going to be printing is going to be black and white only. So you don't need a color printer. All your documents are always going to be single sided. So you don't need the the ability to print on the opposite side. In fact, you should not do that. The other huge component of this is that you will have to print on both letter sized paper and legal size paper - usually as part of the same file. And the way lenders work, it's not all organized. So it's not all the letter size first and then all the legal size, it's all intermixed. So you need a printer that's going to help you out with that.

So let's talk about the actual printers specifications.

First thing, you're probably going to want to get a laser printer as opposed to an InkJet. And the main reason for that is that for the LaserJet - the ink is more affordable and it does not smear as easy. You'll find that there's actually some lenders and title companies that have specific instructions that say 'DO NOT USE INKJET PRINTERS' on this, so it's better just to choose the LaserJet.

The other huge factor is that you'll want a dual tray printer and it is called 'dual tray', so you don't want just two drawers - so there's extra paper for 8 1/2 x 11 or letter size paper, you want a 'dual tray' printer that can print both letter size and legal size as per how the file dictates.

Another huge component is your printer speed. You know a lot of these mortgage loan document packages are 150 to 300 pages, so you need a printer speed that's not going to keep you a standing in front of it for a couple hours. Somewhere between that 40 and 45 page per minute should be just fine for you.

Now as far as recommendations go, there really are tons of options out there. Well - not really tons! You're going to be HP, Brother, Epson, and there's some Cannons out there and things of that nature. But really HP and Brother are the most popular brands for mobile notaries and loan signing agents.

Personally, I've found that the Brother is just a workhorse. It really works out well and there's two models that you can choose to work with. The first one is the HL5200, and then the slightly faster brother to the Brother is the HL6200. Both can be purchased on Amazon for under $300 - usually.

You can get the Brother Printer here: https://amzn.to/30fVqpq

Those are going to be your best bet and they're not going to let you down. Plus at that price point it's not a huge investment because some of these printers, especially when you get into the enterprise versions, can be close to $2000.

So this is a great starter printer for you. In fact, many notaries use these printers solely and some of them last six, seven - I've even had somebody say theirs has lasted 8 to 10 years. Mine don't tend to last that long because I'm not very technical, so I will tend to buy a new printer instead of have to fuss with it whenever it breaks. But the cool thing about Brother too is that they've got great technical support so you can call in and get assistance when you need it.

Here's some things that you'll want to keep in mind for the technical functionality.

You are going to likely need Adobe so you can read and print PDF files. Now the downside to working with a MAC is that sometimes Adobe and a MAC don't communicate very well, so that will affect the printing and the ability to print both letter and legal size as per the file. Again, that's more on the technical side, but to work around that many Mac owners actually get just a little Google Chromebook or a small HP laptop or something along those lines that works with windows, so they have that functionality.

I hope that adds some clarity to your printer purchases.

Again, my name is Bill Soroka, founder of NotaryCoach.com and the Sign and Thrive Notary Training Course and Community. If I can be of any other assistance or if you have regular questions, please send them to [email protected].

Thanks a lot guys, and have a great weekend!

xxx - Bill.

LINKS:

www.NotaryCoach.com

Recommended Printer Link: https://amzn.to/30fVqpq