Paper shredders come in different sizes & shapes to suit the need of every office or home. A wide variety is easily available in the market for its customers to choose from. Before reaching the final decision regarding the correct shredder suitable to your needs, one must have a thorough idea of all the types available in the market along with their special features. This will help you decide for the shredder just right for you. One thing important is that it should have the hand-safe & jam-proof features whatever type you select.

According to the end form the shredder is turning the paper into, there are two basic types of shredders:

Strip-Cut Shredders:

These shredders cut the paper into thin, long slices. They are also called spaghetti-cut or straight-cut shredders. They are not as expensive as the cross-cut paper shredders. They are also easy on maintenance & are suitable for shredding low volumes of paper.

Cross-Cut Shredders:

These shredders are also called confetti-cut shredders. They are more expensive than strip-cut shredders & also require more maintenance than them. These shredders cut the paper both horizontally & vertically to have very small chunks in the end. They should be used when more security of the shredded document is required as it's extremely difficult for the identity thief to join them up again.

If we look at the number of users, the capacity of paper shredder & the type of customer it's catering to, then there are following types available in the market:

Personal Shredders

These shredders are compact enough to keep beside the desk or under the counter and are sleekly styled for any d'cor. These personal shredders take staples and paper clips as well. They are designed for years of relatively light use & they typically handle between 3 and 10 sheets of paper at one time. Strip-cut and cross-cut shredders are available with additional features.

Office Shredders

There is a wide range of shredders available for office use. You should select the one most appropriate to your office. The intensity of the security issue, the shredder capacity required & the size of the office along with the number of users should be taken into account while deciding for the shredder just right for your office. These office shredders come in both strip-cut & cross-cut versions. One should also be aware of the extra features available in the market. The sheet capacity each time for these office shredders is from 12 to 20.

Departmental Shredders

These shredders are ideal for an entire department or the office floor. They are powerful enough to shred 15 and 140 sheets of paper at a time. Departmental Shredders easily chew up staples and paper clips and many strip cut models can also destroy CD-Roms, credit cards and floppy disks.

Industrial Shredders

They handle the high capacity shredding needs of several departments or even an entire facility. Hundreds of papers can be shredded at a time with thousands in a day.

High-Security Shredders

When security of confidential & sensitive documents is the top priority, these shredders are ideal. These paper shredders offer you the greatest degree of protection against identity theft or misuse by reducing your private documents to mere dust.