Digital Printing

To be cost effective, commercial printing requires a minimum run because of the set up time involved. With an office printer, you can do the job yourself with minimum expense and still get a comparable product. Because digital printers gives you the flexibility to make targeted short runs of specialty print projects, they are an invaluable tool for your bottom line arsenal.

Beefed Up Bar Codes

Bar code printing covers a variety of tasks and needs. Both inkjet and laser printers will work, but laser output tends not to smear when touched. Small label printers can also be used. In addition to your printer, you’ll need software and some specialty fonts. You can find both at companies such as The Barcode Software center, Seagull Scientific, Got Barcode? and ID Automation. Most of these companies offer free trial downloads of their software that you can test drive before you buy.

Digital Printing Produces Better Business Cards

In an old television series, James Garner, AKA James Rockford, carried a portable hand-cranked offset printer in his car trunk for making temporary business cards he used to gain access to restricted areas and companies. Rockford would have loved Clean Edge business card stock from Avery which allows the quick and easy printing of even a single business card on your printer. The clean edge breaks off evenly, without those telltale chads and nubs common to computer generated business cards that raise red flags when passed around at networking meetings. You can also make business cards with color accents if you have a good inkjet or a color laser printer.

Tickets, Please!

While not yet a thing of the past, pre-printed tickets are expensive to produce and track. Computer digital printing allows tickets that can be printed online with customer printers using an emailed PDF file, offering convenience to the customer who won’t have to stand in line at the ticket booth. Small business owners can track the barcode imprinted on the ticket with a scanner the company provides, claims the maker ClicknPrint.

Greeting Cards And Invitations

With digital printing you don’t need specialized desktop publishing software to print a quality invitation or greeting card. In fact, most word processing programs can be tweaked to print a basic image in monochrome or color. You can check online under “Desktop publishing supplies” for a list of retail paper suppliers offering blank stock on which you can print your own specialized message. Check under “Preprinted stationary” for vendors offering pre-printed designs and messages to which you can add your company information. Office supply companies like Staples, Office Max and Office Depot have a selection of blank stocks and pre-printed imaged stocks to choose from.

DIY Thank Yous

You can also buy blank parchment stock and make your own thank you notes, invitation or greetings. For information on how to use this method to make a thank you note, see Thank You Business Letter.

Invest In Digital Printing Software

You can also purchase publishing software such as Quark or Adobe PageMaker if you do a lot of digital printing. Another company called Mountaincow offers its own brand of software which is less expensive.

Certificates

You can print directly on preprinted, stamped and embossed certificate stocks from Goes that can be used for awards or recognition programs. The stock comes in assorted sizes.

Specialty Printing

NovaChrome USA produces a line of sublimation transfers to create full-color, photo quality graphics on T-shirts, caps, coffee mugs, ceramic tiles, wood, fabric, metal award plaques, puzzles, plastics and other items. The images are printed on the transfer material with an inkjet or laser printer, then heat transferred to the an object. Set-up time is minimal claims the maker. A scanner can be used to scan in an image for a custom logo. Specialty inks costs $337 with 100 81/2x11” transfer sheets going for $15. Images can be created using CorelDraw or Photoshop.

Printers that work with the sublimation process include Epson models 1280 and C86, Hewlett Packard LaserJet, HP 2 and HP 3, Canon, Apple LaserWriter Pro 630 and Apple Laser Writer II.