Kinko's, FedEx Team for Fast Service

How would you like to be able to send your business document off to the printer and have it printed and delivered to your customers that same day, right from your desktop?A new alliance between copy center giant Kinko's and Federal Express(FedEx) lets you do just that. The companies have teamed up to let you place your print order over the Web and designate where to deliver it, all in a single transaction.

The new service--dubbed "Print to Kinko's"--lets customers upload an 8 1/2-by-11-inch document in a number of popular formats to the copy center's Web site, specifying same-day or next-business-day delivery by FedEx. Same-day delivery is available in 20 major metropolitan areas as long as you get your document to Kinko's by 8 p.m. local time. FedEx will deliver documents on the next business day throughout the rest of the country if you upload your file by 9 p.m. local time.

The service is intended to handle documents that can't simply be sent by e-mail and printed by the recipient, explains a Kinko's spokesperson. For example, the Kinko's/FedEx service will deliver printed documents to multiple locations and with multiple print options. You may want only one person to receive a spiral-bound copy, while the rest of the recipients get punched paper versions.

Or you might want to send transparencies to one person and printouts of the presentation slides to the rest of the recipients.

Service Goes Nationwide

The companies plan to offer same-day delivery in 55 markets by the end of the year and will expand the service to international markets beginning next year.

The move is an expansion of an existing agreement the two companies have had since 1994, in which FedEx sited package drop-off locations in Kinko's copy centers.

Print to Kinko's was quietly tested in five cities--Atlanta; Austin, Texas; Boston; Las Vegas; and San Francisco. It's now being rolled out nationally, according to Kinko's representatives.

Customers can upload documents in Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPoint formats, as well as in Adobe Acrobat PDF or Encapsulated PostScript. Other supported formats include Corel WordPerfect, text files, and rich text files.

Alternately, Kinko's provides a free downloadable text-formatting tool that you can use. Documents can range from black-and-white copies to bound color presentations or color transparencies.

Costs are comparable to Kinko's regular printing charges and FedEx's normal delivery fees, according to the Kinko's spokesperson.

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