In 1938, Chester Carlson, a physicist working independently, invented a process for printing images using an electrically charged photoconductor-coated metal plate[13] and dry powder "toner".

However, it would take more than 20 years of refinement before the first automated machine to make copies was commercialized, using a document feeder, scanning light, and a rotating drum.

At about half the size and weight, this still sizable machine printed onto hand-fed, cut-sheet paper which was pulled through the process by one of two gripper bars.

Initially, they planned for the Ferranti and AEI computer companies to sell the Xeronic as an on-line peripheral, but due to interface problems, Rank switched to a magnetic tape off-line technique.

Although not as fast as offset printing, this machine introduced the industry's first automatic document feeder, paper slitter and perforator, and collator (sorter).

The lab was developing what it called long distance xerography (LDX) to connect a modified 813 copier to a CRT based scanner using a special service (TELPAK) of the public telephone network, so that a document scanned on one machine would print out on the other.

The LDX system was introduced in 1964, followed in 1966 by the Magnafax Telecopier, a much smaller, slower and less expensive version that acoustically coupled to a desk phone.

[citation needed] In a 1975 Super Bowl commercial for the 9200, Xerox debuted an advertising campaign featuring Brother Dominic, a monk who used the 9200 system to save decades of manual copying.

[34] Following these years of record profits, in 1975, Xerox resolved an anti-trust suit with the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which at the time was under the direction of Frederic M. Scherer.

The Xerox consent decree resulted in the forced licensing of the company's entire patent portfolio, mainly to Japanese competitors.

Attempting to expand beyond copiers, in 1981 Xerox introduced a line of electronic memory typewriters, the Memorywriter, which gained 20% market share, mostly at the expense of IBM.

[citation needed] In 1989, Xerox won the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for Business Products and Systems, headquartered in Rochester, NY.

[42] After Thoman's resignation, Allaire again resumed the position of CEO and served until the appointment of Anne M. Mulcahy, another long-term Xerox executive.

[44] She launched an aggressive turnaround plan that returned Xerox to full-year profitability by the end of 2002, along with decreasing debt, increasing cash, and continuing to invest in research and development.

[53] In December 2013, Xerox sold its Wilsonville, Oregon solid ink product design, engineering and chemistry group and related assets previously acquired from Tektronix to 3D Systems for $32.5 million in cash.

[68] HP criticized the proposed purchase as a "flawed value exchange" based on "overstated synergies", and instituted a shareholder rights plan and other measures designed to quell the bid,[69][70] which the company believed was being orchestrated by Icahn.

[9] In December 2024, Xerox announced an agreement to acquire Lexmark International, a Chinese-owned maker of printers and printing software, in a $1.5 billion deal.

[77] Xerox management was afraid the product version of Starkweather's invention, which became the 9700, would negatively impact their copier business so the innovation sat in limbo until IBM launched the 3800 laser printer in 1976.

In 1980, Xerox announced the 5700 laser printer, a much smaller version of their 9700, but with touch-screen capabilities and multiple media input (word processing disks, IBM magcards, etc.)

The facility developed many modern computing technologies such as the graphical user interface (GUI), laser printing, WYSIWYG text editors, and Ethernet.

This machine can be considered the first true Personal Computer, given its versatile combination of a cathode-ray-type screen, mouse-type pointing device, and a QWERTY-type alphanumeric keyboard.

Jobs and the others saw the commercial potential of the WIMP (Window, Icon, Menu, and Pointing device) system and redirected development of the Apple Lisa to incorporate these technologies.

[84][citation needed] Apple instead bought rights to the Alto GUI and adapted it into a more affordable personal computer, aimed towards the business and education markets.

[85][86] Xerox manufactures and sells office equipment including scanners, printers, and multifunction systems that scan, print, copy, email and fax.

Products include the iGen, Nuvera, DocuPrint, and Impika series, as well as the Trivor, iPrint, and Rialto (inkjet) machines.

On June 5, 2003, six Xerox senior executives accused of securities fraud settled their issues with the SEC and neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing.

As a symbol of this transformation, the relative size of the word "Xerox" was increased in proportion to "The Document Company" on the corporate signature, and the latter was dropped altogether in September 2004, along with the digital X.

The source of the error was a bug in the JBIG2 implementation, which is an image compression standard that makes use of pattern matching to encode identical characters only once.

Shortly afterwards, it was found that the same fix had been suggested in the printer manual, which mentioned the occurrence of character substitutions in "normal mode", indicating that Xerox was aware of the software error.

[107][108] After Kriesel provided evidence that the error was also occurring in all three image quality modes (normal, higher and high) including the factory defaults, Xerox corrected their statement and released a software patch to eliminate the problem.