School letters, print logo or use preprinted letterhead?

[Zourous]

When looking at replacing a colour printer last week I asked what they printed with it and the answer was the school logo for the letterhead. A couple of jobs ago I did a lot of printing and back then it was more cost effective to use preprinted letterhead but that was some 14 years ago. Anyone know what is more cost effective these days? We do use non-genuine toner to keep costs down.

[Oddbod]

I don't know whether it's more cost effective or not, but having preprinted letterheads make school correspondence coming from the school more official…

… especially if they use some sort of embossed school emblem as a watermark that can't be faked by scanning to photoshop.

 

I recall a recent college I worked for - still had reams of official letterhead paper with a college watermark (even though they had contemplated getting rid of the library to save on book expenditure - 'cos everything's available on tablets now)

 

2 cents…

[elsiegee40]

From the schools I have been involved with, any cost-effectiveness of pre printed has been ruined each time by a change ... of head ... of MAT ... of Ofsted rating.

 

The most cost effective route has been a black and white version of the header used on pretty much everything. The colour logo only being broken out for special occasions.

 

That and emailing everything possible.

 

I also double-install all printers so users see printers called, say, Office-Mono and Office-Colour.

 

Office-Mono is the default. Users have to switch to colour if they want it. That saved a fortune too.

Edited June 26, 2017 by elsiegee40

[Oaktech]

We have pre-printed compliments slips because they're on a funny canvas-esque paper and a local printer does small batches for us on demand. Everything else is done from a word template. The frequency of change negates any other advantage.

[Zourous]

Nice info so far people, but still not clear what is more cost effective? Preprinted colour letterhead or printed colour letterhead? Maybe there's not much in it to worry about.

[Fazza]

It depends on what kind of printer you will be using the letterheaded paper on.

 

If it's inkjet then it should be OK.

 

If you use a laser printer you shouldnt really put a piece of paper through it twice else you could end up with a jammed printer with the paper wrapping itself around itself along with the edges getting damaged and can potentially cause paper jams that way.

 

When a Printers print letter headed paper for you they dont use a printer (like an Inkjet or LaserJet) they use a printing press so the paper has never been put through a fuser unit for example which dries out the paper. Laser Printer paper has some water particles in the paper and when it goes through the fuser unit the moisture is removed and causes the paper to curl (the curl is dependent on the quality/cheapness of the paper as all paper comes from a roll and is then squashed to make it appear flat). When the water is removed (i.e. after going through a fuser unit) the paper goes back to it's original shape - the cheaper the paper the closer to the centre of a reel of paper it came from thus the greater the curve. Slightly curved paper can cause you paperjams and in the worst case scenario can wrap itself around your fuser unit for example and end up costing you a lot of money to replace the units.

 

 

The best solution is to either have your leterheads professionally printed (on a printing press) or create a Word Document with the letterhead already in place and put that on your Intranet or VLE for staff to use.

[Zourous]

The best solution is to either have your leterheads professionally printed (on a printing press)

 

Erm yeah, that is what I meant. I'm trying to compare the cost of professionally printed letterhead to just printing it on yourself with your colour laser printer printing the letter as is created (not putting it through twice). If pre-printed letterhead is obviosuly cheaper I can try and push it as way to save money. Was hoping someone here uses preprinted letterhead and knows the costs?

[localzuk]

We used to use a Riso to print all our letterhead. We stopped doing that quite a while ago, and now its all done via Word templates. We've changed letterheads a bunch of times over the last few years - new head, new deputy head, became an academy, became a mutli-academy trust etc...

[elsiegee40]

It depends on what kind of printer you will be using the letterheaded paper on.

 

If it's inkjet then it should be OK.

 

If you use a laser printer you shouldnt really put a piece of paper through it twice else you could end up with a jammed printer with the paper wrapping itself around itself along with the edges getting damaged and can potentially cause paper jams that way.

 

When a Printers print letter headed paper for you they dont use a printer (like an Inkjet or LaserJet) they use a printing press so the paper has never been put through a fuser unit for example which dries out the paper. Laser Printer paper has some water particles in the paper and when it goes through the fuser unit the moisture is removed and causes the paper to curl (the curl is dependent on the quality/cheapness of the paper as all paper comes from a roll and is then squashed to make it appear flat). When the water is removed (i.e. after going through a fuser unit) the paper goes back to it's original shape - the cheaper the paper the closer to the centre of a reel of paper it came from thus the greater the curve. Slightly curved paper can cause you paperjams and in the worst case scenario can wrap itself around your fuser unit for example and end up costing you a lot of money to replace the units.

 

 

The best solution is to either have your leterheads professionally printed (on a printing press) or create a Word Document with the letterhead already in place and put that on your Intranet or VLE for staff to use.

 

I agree - who does that?

 

Word templates all the way! Easy to change, nothing in stock when the next change happens and gets printed with the document so no running it through printers twice.

 

Although, isn't printing back to back running the paper through the printer twice?

[forkies]

I don't see how paying for printing a colour page, then paying the cost of printing black and white would possibly be cheaper then paying just for the colour page. Unless your colour printing is really expensive?

[DrCheese]

We outsource our letterhead printing - 10,000 sheets lasts us a good 6 months & it looks/feels miles better than anything we can do in house (We don't have a single edge to edge printer) I don't think the cost is too dramatic.

[Fazza]

isn't printing back to back running the paper through the printer twice?

 

If you mean duplex, then yes it goes through the fuser unit twice (once per side) which is why you printer is more likely to jam when printing duplex with really cheap paper.

[MatthewL]

You can put higher quality papers through multi function machines and all you need to do is change the paper type to it doesn't heat up as much therefore ruining the paper.

 

I have numerous customers who no longer use pre printed mainly due to amount of changes etc and just print. I think it's the way forward as most things get PDF'd and uploaded too.