Canon imageFORCE Black-and-White Floor-Standing Printers: A Plain-Language Guide

If your business prints a lot of documents, and most of them don’t need color, a black-and-white floor-standing printer is one of the best investments you can make. These machines are built to run all day, handle high volumes, and deliver a low cost per page that a desktop printer can’t match.

At Novatech, we help companies right-size their print setup every week. In this blog, we’ll walk through Canon‘s imageFORCE black-and-white floor-standing lineup so you can see what’s available and who each model is built for.

What Are Canon imageFORCE Black-and-White Floor-Standing Printers?

These are A3 multifunction printers, which means they can handle larger paper sizes in addition to standard letter and legal. They print, copy, and scan at high speeds, hold thousands of sheets of paper at once, and support advanced finishing options like stapling, hole punching, and booklet making.

Canon’s imageFORCE black-and-white floor-standing lineup has two main families:

imageFORCE 6100 Series – The mid-range option. Built for busy offices with serious volume.

imageFORCE 8100 Series – The high-volume option. Built for large organizations and in-house print environments.

The imageFORCE 6100 Series

This is the middle of the black-and-white floor-standing lineup. There are three speed options:

• 6155 – 55 pages per minute
• 6160 – 60 pages per minute
• 6170 – 70 pages per minute

All three models can print up to 12″ x 18″, which means you can handle tabloid-size documents, large spreadsheets, engineering drawings, and folded brochures in-house. They scan at 200 ipm (images per minute) and deliver industry-leading 4800 x 2400 dpi print resolution using Canon’s D2 Exposure system. In plain language: sharp text, clean lines, and detailed graphics.

Maximum paper capacity goes up to 3,200 sheets, so refilling paper isn’t a daily task.

Who it’s built for: Mid-sized businesses with 50 to 200 people, law firms with heavy document workflows, schools, and any office that prints a steady stream of black-and-white documents throughout the day.

The imageFORCE 8100 Series

This is the top of the black-and-white lineup, and it’s built for serious volume. There are three models:

• 8186 – 86 pages per minute
• 8195 – 95 pages per minute
• 8105 – 105 pages per minute

At these speeds, you’re looking at more than a page and a half every second on the fastest model. The 8100 Series uses Canon’s advanced 32-beam R-VCSEL Imaging Laser, which delivers up to 2400 x 2400 dpi resolution with fine detail at high speeds.

Maximum paper capacity reaches 8,020 sheets, meaning someone could print all day without reloading. The 8100 Series also includes design features that help with long print runs:

• Fixing knobs in the lower cassettes to keep the media plate secure and prevent paper from shifting during big jobs.
• Front-to-back registration for precise alignment, which matters on double-sided documents.
• Sturdy welded frame designed to handle long-term, heavy use.

Who it’s built for: Large organizations with 200 to 500 or more people, in-house print environments, central document production for multi-location companies, and any business that runs thousands of pages a day.

What They All Have in Common

Across both families, you get:

Fast scanning. Both series scan at up to 270 ipm at 300 dpi. That means turning a stack of paper into digital files happens quickly, which matters for document-heavy businesses.

Strong security features. All imageFORCE models include user authentication, secure print, FIPS 140-3 storage encryption, Trellix Embedded Control to help block malware, and options for SIEM integration if your IT team uses a security monitoring platform.

Cloud and software integration. These printers connect with Microsoft OneDrive, SharePoint, Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, and Microsoft Teams. They also support Canon’s uniFLOW Online for print management and Canon’s imageWARE Enterprise Management Console for fleet monitoring.

Future-ready through firmware updates. Canon’s Unified Firmware Platform means these printers get new features, security improvements, and functionality over time, not just at the time of purchase.

ENERGY STAR certified. All models meet federal energy efficiency standards. The imageFORCE platform also uses low-melting-point toner and efficient fusing technology to keep power draw low during everyday use.

Versatile media support. Both series handle envelopes, postcards, booklets, long sheets, and other media types beyond just plain paper.

Why Pick a Floor-Standing Black-and-White Printer?

A few honest reasons businesses choose this over color or desktop options:

1. Lower cost per page. Black-and-white printing is simpler, uses less toner, and costs less per printed page than color. Over thousands of pages a month, the savings add up.
2. Higher volume capacity. Floor-standing models are built to run all day, every day. Desktop printers will struggle or break down if you try to use them that way.
3. Better finishing options. Stapling, hole punching, booklet making, and folding are available on most floor-standing models and can save your team hours of manual work.
4. More paper capacity. Loading paper once a week is better than loading it three times a day.

How to Pick the Right One

Here are the questions that actually matter when choosing a black-and-white floor-standing printer:

1. How many pages does your team print per month? Under 50,000 pages, the 6100 Series is likely enough. Over 50,000, look at the 8100 Series.
2. Do you need speed at the machine? If people stand and wait, faster models matter. If print jobs can queue overnight, a slower model saves money.
3. Do you print on larger paper or do advanced finishing? If yes, the A3 size and optional finishing accessories on both series open up a lot of possibilities.
4. How many users will share this printer? A single printer supporting 200 people needs more speed, more paper capacity, and more durability than one supporting 30 people.

A Final Thought

Floor-standing black-and-white printers are often the workhorse of a busy office. They aren’t flashy, but they run quietly in the background, handle the document load, and last for years when matched to the right volume.

At Novatech, the mistake we see most often is businesses picking a printer based on price alone, then outgrowing it within a year. The second most common mistake is the opposite: buying more printer than they need and paying for capacity that sits unused.

If you’d like help figuring out where your business lands on the 6100 vs. 8100 decision, or whether a different setup entirely would serve you better, we’re happy to have that conversation. No hard sell, just an honest look at what fits.