What should be recorded about connected printers or scanners?¶

Record the device's identity, connections, visible job state and physical documents before clearing, cancelling, restarting or navigating it. Modern printers and scanners can retain records independently of the computer that submitted a job.

Capture the device and the work in progress¶

Photograph the display, status lights, cables, trays, loaded originals, output and partially processed documents, preserving their order and position. Note the make, model, serial number, asset tag, physical location, network name and displayed address. Record visible print, scan, fax or error messages before pressing controls.

If a management page is already open, capture the account, page, displayed time, jobs, destinations and identifiers. Do not generate a test page or enter hidden menus merely to collect information: those actions can create new jobs, logs and configuration changes.

Map how the device is shared¶

A peripheral may connect through USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a print server or a cloud service. Note every visible route and whether it appears personal, organisational, shared or managed through secure-print authentication. Relevant records can include queues, address books, scan destinations, accounts, error logs and cached images.

Where confidential documents, internal storage or a live organisational service are involved, coordinate with the system owner and a specialist. A username beside a job identifies a submitted account, not necessarily the person at the device.