Brother MFC-J6760DW all-in-one printer, colour inkjet, A3, fax, Wi-Fi

A3 is twice the size of a standard A4 sheet. It holds a wide Excel table without taping two pages together, a construction drawing or floor plan at a readable scale, a poster for the meeting room wall or a two-page spread of a brochure layout. For a small office, A3 capability means large prints no longer have to be ordered from outside and waited for.

An inkjet printer lays down colour in fine droplets, which makes it well suited to colour charts, presentations and documents with pictures. Where a laser printer is first of all a tool for text, an inkjet gives colour material smoother transitions. Everyday black-and-white documents are of course handled by the same device as well.

Scanning is in colour, so documents with stamps, signatures and coloured notes can be digitised exactly as they look. Copies are made without a computer, and the fax lets you send documents to partners who still rely on it. One device replaces several separate machines and frees up office space.

Double-sided printing reduces paper use and makes long documents thinner. Over Wi-Fi the printer joins the office or home office network, so every computer on that network can print to it and the unit can sit wherever there is room for an A3 printer. The grey housing suits both office and home surroundings.

Architecture, construction and engineering offices that need drawings in A3; accountants and analysts whose spreadsheets do not fit on A4; designers and marketers who check layouts on paper; and small offices that want one device for colour printing, scanning, copying and faxing.