Printers for continious paper

[rambo_tw]

Hi,

I'm trying to find a solution so that our company can print their stationary, account application forms etc inhouse instead of getting external companies to do it.

The paper in question is the continuous mutli-part type. Two parts, one for the customers and one for the company to keep.(like tracing paper) The paper is used in dot matrix printers, specifically the Epson FX890.

At the moment, an external company prints the letterheads and the contact details on the paper and then delivers it to us in a box holding thousands of pieces of paper all stuck to eachother (continuous tear off type).

I'm trying to find out if we can cut them out and do this ourselves inhouse. We can get the continuous paper blank, but i need to know how we can print the logo + contact details on them for example?

Any advice greatly appreciated

Thanks!

[localzuk]

Can I ask a quick question? Why is the company using continuous paper?

Also, this is probably the wrong place to ask this really, as I doubt many schools use continuous paper!

[rambo_tw]

They use it when they make a sale, customer comes in, buys something, they process it on the system & then print the receipt on double paper.

Just thought some of the experts here might know.

[localzuk]

Have they thought about moving to a modern printer, ie. a laser? They could simply print 2 copies... This way the printing could be done cheaply and the headed paper done in house easily.

The problem, as I see it, will be that continuous paper is pretty much a specialist good now, since the introduction of high speed laser printers - the market has shrunk considerably and therefore prices have increased also.

What sort of costs are they incurring at the moment for the paper?

[rambo_tw]

They have over 100 of these dot matrix printers all eating away at the continuous tear-off paper.

I need something that's capable to produce pre printed multi part continious paper for use in the dot matrix printers.

[FN-GM]

how much does it cost you to buy this paper? If you don't mind me asking.

[rambo_tw]

I don't know how much it costs, i'd have to ask them that.

As an example, I have on my desk an ATS receipt for some work on my car. This ie exactly the same as what im talking about.

It has the ATS logo on the top, blue border around it. that stuff is pre printed and then the order details are printed on in the dot matrix. So if any of you have been to ATS Euromaster or similar garage, thats the type of thing im on about.

Need something that can pre print this type of paper

[FN-GM]

I know exactly what you mean, I am unsure how to go about doing it yourself though. Maybe you should have a chat to someone in the printing game

[rambo_tw]

Yeah, i was hoping someone here might have worked in print or something before.

[john]

I think with you wanting the continuous sheet stuff I think thats where your going to come unstuck as its a specialist area. If you had wanted to make standard A4 or A3 stuff then I would have said IDEM make a carbonless paper which is ok at its job but not continuous fanfold.

[maniac]

What you basically need is a continuous form printer of some sort that's higher quality that the dotmatrix. You can buy them in both inkjet and laser form, but judging by the fact that when you do find them, they are always listed as POA, they are going to cost a lot of money.

The continuous form used by companies like ATS would have been printed on a large scale on a printing press of some sort, you would not beable to replecate the quality of a form like this on a small scale.

Also note that if the form is a double layerd one so the details are replecated, then whatever is printed onto it would only appear on the top sheet, to print on both would require the sheets to be seperated, then put back together after printing. I don't know of any printers capeable of doing that!

Mike.

[rambo_tw]

What you basically need is a continuous form printer of some sort that's higher quality that the dotmatrix. You can buy them in both inkjet and laser form, but judging by the fact that when you do find them, they are always listed as POA, they are going to cost a lot of money.

The continuous form used by companies like ATS would have been printed on a large scale on a printing press of some sort, you would not beable to replecate the quality of a form like this on a small scale.

Also note that if the form is a double layerd one so the details are replecated, then whatever is printed onto it would only appear on the top sheet, to print on both would require the sheets to be seperated, then put back together after printing. I don't know of any printers capeable of doing that!

Mike.

Right, ok. Thanks for that.

I wasn't to sure of it, but i was asked about the possibility of it.

This would be on quite a big scale, there would be nearly 30 outlets requiring boxes and boxes of this paper. They were thinking if the equipment is available, would it be worth them setting it up in one location and doing it inhouse.

Another thing that needs doing is the credit account application forms, which doesnt feel like normal paper. It feels more like photo paper or a magazine page. What type of paper is this? Would a laser printer be adequate to print these?

[maniac]

Going a bit specialist for me now! Not an expert on paper types and stuff I'm afraid. The information I had was as a result of googling for continuous form printers!

For foms like credit applications, you would need the pre-printed boxes etc on all layers of the form. You cannot do this except with a proper printing press arrangement where the paper is printed before it's put together. This sort of setup is serious £££s and would be un-economical for even a large business to considor.

Personally my advice is to carry on getting all the forms printed, as the cost of setting up equipment to print these type of forms is very excessive. Even big national companies out source these sorts of documents as if it were that easy to print them, then everyone would be doing it.

Mike.

[srochford]

I definitely think that the way to go is to look at changing printers but you really need some numbers to check out.

The dot matrix printers you have won't last for ever and will get more expensive to replace (because they are becoming more specialist). Similarly, multi-part stationery is expensive and continuous multi-part stationery is very expensive.

I'm sure you can buy some sort of press for pre-printing continuous stationery but (as others have said) this kind of thing is very specialist. Do you currently employ someone who knows how to manage offset litho printing equipment (I'm guesing that's the technology because it's pretty common for big printing)? If not, how much does it cost to employ such a person compared to the cost of buying 30 or 60 laser printers (even colour laser printers; you can buy a pretty solid printer for £500 so 60 of them will cost less about 1 person's salary with on-costs)

We moved from printing purchase orders on continuous multi-part stationery to laser printers about 4 years ago and it works well. The printers have 4 trays so they can print on 4 colours of paper (don't ask!!) and the application just sends 1 copy of the document as it always did and the printer makes the multiple copies.

We use Kyocera printers and they have a facility to intercept print jobs and do some processing on them - in this case, just to send the 1 job to 4 trays but they can do much more. I'm pretty sure most of the other big printers can do the same sort of thing.

[contink]

Drawing on my now somewhat old printshop experience (read: 20 years ago!) I'd say Steve is probably the one with the best idea on this.

If I read this correctly you were looking to print a layout/header/etc.. on the fly on multi-part carbon paper before it's passed on to dot-matrix printer. From what I know of printers you'd be bloody lucky to find anything that could do that and it would definitely be of industry level standard.

The only thing that would make sense would be to get the paper pre-printed at a commercial press and all the bases have been covered by other posters above... It's just not worth it.

As I said, Steve is recommending what I'd say was your best bet...