Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with printing

Size matters

Obscure Reference — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 10:19:07 -0800

How can I print 34 lines of text so that it takes up exactly 6.125 inches? Or equivalently, so that each line is .18 inches. I tried different fonts in various word processors but always ended up a little to large or too small. There's probably an obvious way to do this using some easily available software (preferably free) but I can't seem to figure out what it is.

Printing large custom sizes in LA?

speicus — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:14:25 -0800

Is there a print shop in Los Angeles that excels in dealing with large custom sizes (10x13 and/or 13x20)? I'm making parts for a piece of orchestra music that requires these custom sizes. I know that places like Kelly Paper and xpedx can make the paper for me, but after that I still need access to a large-format printer. The way I see it I have a couple options:

1) Find a place that would allow me to handle the printing myself. This would be ideal, as there's a lot of finicky specifics that are easy to mess up, and I've had bad experiences with LA print shops in the past.

2) Find a place that has a lot of experience handling custom sizes -- maybe even one that specializes in music copying.

Can anyone recommend such a mythologically awesome print shop?

How to print a stapled newsletter at kinkos using InDesign?

qvinx — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 22:09:40 -0800

How do I make a document that will be printed so that its pages can be folded in half and stapled down the middle? (saddle-stitched?) I'm in charge of my campus fellowship's semester publication/magazine. In the past we've done everything "by hand," cutting with scissors and gluing, et cetera. But this year I am using InDesign.

I'm not having much trouble actually making the magazine, but I just realized how printing it might be a problem. Because on the computer the document is displayed in page order, but if it's printed like that and stapled (down the middle, saddle-stitch?), all the pages would be out of order.

So I must do something called imposition?

Also, we are printing at kinkos. Would it be best to go with a PDF file that is formatted with page spreads (?) for printing? How do I go about doing this?

Sorry I know nothing about printing so my lingo is probably all wrong. So any help would be appreciated!

What are some good non-Epson digital papers for my Epson R1900?

deinemutti — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 14:12:23 -0800

What are some good non-Epson digital papers for my Epson R1900? What are some good non-Epson digital papers for my Epson R1900? I am a graphic design student in my last year of school and I have recently purchased the above mentioned printer after researching and comparing other printers.

Because I do more with the printer than just plain photos and I don't want to pay for Epson's markup with their papers, what are some good alternatives?

I've been experimenting with its settings and different papers. I unfortunately bought a ream of offset semi-gloss coated paper; and although it looks fine with lighter colors, any dark colors (especially large areas of dark color) look spotty and horrible, even after using the "plain paper" (or non-photo paper setting). When I lowered the draft quality the colors were too washed out. I was told that I got the results I did, because I bought offset paper. Live and learn I guess.

I usually go get paper from a specialty supplier where I live (Anchor Paper in the Twin Cities) and I need 11 x 17 or 12 x 18 and I want some type of coating with a gloss or dull finish. But what are some brands of digital paper I can buy? And for those who live in the area and know, any other stores besides Anchor that are also good?

Bulk printing for bottle labels

echo target — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 13:26:13 -0800

Looking for recommendations for a bulk printing shop for liquor bottle labels. I'm looking for a good print shop to do some labels for a microdistillery. It'll be a run of about 2000 labels to start with. I'd like to get 3.5x6" or so, and I'd very much prefer roll stock rather than sheets. I'll also want to order online, of course.

Can you tell me about your print shop experiences? Good, bad, or just okay.

I'm comfortable with the design end and I should have no trouble matching whatever file requirements the shop has.

Game on!

timpollard — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 03:30:57 -0800

Does anyone know where in the UK I can buy sheets of blank (on both sides) printable playing cards, similar to the ones from the US site 'www.plaincards.com'? I want to print out a home-designed card wargame and perforated card sheets would make life so much easier! Thanks in advance...

Help me print my photos!

mingodingo — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:02:01 -0800

My mom has mentioned wanting new photo portraits of me, my brother, and our dogs (her grand-dogs)--I know, kinda corny. But we thought that this would be a good idea for a Christmas present, so we went to the park over Thanksgiving and did a little photo shoot. What's the best way to get good quality prints of our digital pictures? We're wanting to get a good quality, large print (around 16' by 20'), as well as some smaller (8' x 10', 4' x 6'). We also want a collage of several of the photos (but I don't know whether we want a "pre-printed" collage, or just a frame with several spots for different photos).

So anyway, we're trying to figure out where to get these printed. He's in West Texas, and I'm in the Bay Area. I'm thinking the easiest option would be to go through an online service (shutterfly, smugmug, etc.). Does anyone have experience with any of these services, or other similar online digital printers? Would you recommend using "brick and mortar" printers instead? And if so, do you have any recommendations in West Texas or the Bay Area?

Thanks!

Print-on-demand that isn't CafePress, Zazzle, DA, or RedBubble?

katillathehun — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:48:19 -0800

I'm looking for a print-on-demand site for prints and possibly calendars of my illustrations. But not CafePress, Zazzle, DeviantArt or RedBubble. Who's left? DeviantArt has worked well for me in the past, and RedBubble seems pretty good too, but I'm looking for something with less of a community vibe to be my main storefront. I just want to sell the things! I've never been crazy about the quality of CafePress and Zazzle prints. I would even be willing to print some things the traditional way, but I'd still need someone else to handle the orders and shipping, and I like the upload-it-and-forget-it convenience of on-demand.

So... are there any other options?

NYC Digital Printers willing to do small issue runs?

suedehead — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 20:48:23 -0800

Do you know a good printer in NYC who will be willing to do super-tiny runs (say, 5 issues) of digital printing and binding of books? I'm looking for a printer in the NYC area (preferably Brooklyn or Manhattan) who'd be willing to (digitally) print and bind a ~40 page document, Letter with bleeds, color, perfect bound, around 5 issues. Price is not really an issue, but speed is -- ideally, the next day or next next day would be wonderful but I know that's asking for a lot.

I'm super comfortable with InDesign/pdf/press requirements so I'm not looking for anyone who has to retouch anything -- I can provide PDFs with bleeds/crop/registration marks with fonts embedded, etc. The most important thing is that the printer would be able to do perfect binding and that their turnaround time is quick.

I know I'm asking a lot, but do you have any recommendations for such a good, fast, reliable printer who'd be willing to work on such a minuscule run?

Thaaanks!

lorem ipsum

luriete — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:23:06 -0800

I need a book printer & binder - ideally the same company - in Northern California who is familiar with photography books. The publication may involve 4-color blacks, or black/silver traditionally litho-printed photographs and text on good paper, Mohawk superfine or something like that; hard and soft bindings may be necessary. Any ideas?

Wireless internet and wireless printing on two separate networks

game warden to the events rhino — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 06:54:36 -0800

I borrow my neighbor's wireless internet, with their permission. Can I set up a separate network for wireless printing in my apartment, and use it simultaneously? I have a Macbook Pro and a (currently unused) Apple Airport Express, and plan to buy a laser printer. I'd like to keep my current internet arrangement, because it saves me money! I have two questions:

1. Am I going to have any problem running a wireless network for printing that doesn't have any connection to the internet at all?
2. Is there any way I could set this system up to avoid having to switch manually between networks every time I wanted to print, or am I completely misunderstanding the nature of wifi in even asking this? Could I be connected to both networks at once?

Thanks in advance.

Help me batch print text files on the Mac

grumblebee — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:19:03 -0800

OS X: I want to batch print all the files in a source-code library. They are actionscript files, which means they are text files that all end in a .as extension. The files are in a complex directory structure (one root folder but files in multiple subfolders), and there are non .as files that I don't want printed. When the files print, I need some kind of separator ( spaces, asterisks, new page...) between each file. I can't seem to find a FILTERABLE batch printing app for OSX -- one that can print all files (of a certain type or naming scheme) in all folders and subfolders starting at a certain root.

I thought about opening Terminal and doing this:

find . -name "*.as" | xargs cat > outfile.txt

And then printing outfile.txt. That would be perfect except that I won't easily be able to tell where one file begins and another ends. I need

*****************

or some other delimiter between files.

If it matters, this is for OS X Leopard.

Where is this powder coming from?

JakeWalker — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:48:56 -0800

What is the name of the technology that produces powder (that verifies authenticity, I suppose) when you bend a drivers license or other ID card? My friend has a New York Drivers License (maybe not the newest one, but still pretty new). If you bend the license, it releases a kind of powder, presumably to verify its authenticity. I'm really curious about the technology (and not because I'm trying to make a fake ID, it is just an interesting technique), and I'm having a hard time googling for more info. Does anyone know what this security technique is called? What other states use it? Where I can find out more?

Printing Postcard Pads

banished — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:19:17 -0800

I'm looking for the best place to find 4x6 postcards glued into a pad of like 50 or 100. Kind of like a memo pad only with thicker cardstock. None of the standard printing places online like Vistaprint have any idea what I'm talking about. But I'm hoping someone out there does. The cheaper the better, of course.

Saving a large photoshop file

cairnish — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:32:10 -0800

Photoshop CS3 for the graphically impaired. I'm struggling to create a banner print file. Two-by-eight foot banner. 200-300 dpi (ppi?). Somehow I'd like to end up with a file I can take to Lazerquick and have them print me a vinyl banner to hang from an outdoor pop-up canopy (and occasionally from a banquet table). I'm guessing 2x8 feet would work. Tartan background with our club name reversed out in white text. (I'm a design dullard.)

I started with a snippet from a tartan wallpaper sample. I've tried to clone that to approximately the right aspect ratio and then resample it up to 24 x 96 inches at 300 dpi (there's a little box at the top of PS that says either dpi or ppi - also tried 200), which is what Lazerquick and FedEx/Kink's tell me they want. After grinding the hard disk for A Very Long Time, and watching the iStat graphic chip temperature climb :-) I think I might have a usable file. If I save it as psd - no go, fails with file too big. I tried saving it in Large Document Format instead, and my poor iMac ground for another eternity and then gave up with a "Can't save - not enough disk space." Oh dear, I thought maybe a spare 100GB would be sufficient. Humph. I googled reports that PS7 had problems recognizing disk space, but from what I can see, I should be successful using PSB format.

So, uh, how do people print giant colorful banners? Is my problem that I'm trying to scale up a bitmapped wallpaper graphic? Do I need to hire someone to replicate the tartan in vector format to get the file size under control?

Looking for a canvas printer, if its a good idea!

jcwilliams — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:14:46 -0800

I'm looking for a good (but lower end of the market) inkjet or giclee printer to print my artwork onto between A2 and A0 size canvas. Has anyone any experience of buying their own large printer as opposed to getting it done at a professional printers. And what is the difference between inkjet and giclee? I'm also curious as to the running costs because I know how expensive the cartridges are for my cheap a4 printer. Is there much tolerance for using different (read cheaper) canvases inks/pigments/dyes? Are there any good online info resources you could recommend? Or is this just mad because I blatantly have no idea what I'm on about?

how to print XKCD with image title?

mercredi — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:06:27 -0800

How can I print an xkcd image with the alternate text and title? Or, even better, save it as a PDF. I can easily print and save the image, but would like some method that would include the title displayed at the top (shown in image properties as "alternate text") as well as the mouse-over text (shown in image properties as "title").

I could cut and paste all this into a word doc, but as the desire to print xkcd to liven up my basement cubicle is frequent, I was looking for a streamlined method.

oh, and it needs to not look like crap.

kidsleepy — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 08:31:57 -0800

What's the best online print shop these days? Caveat: must have cheap options for small runs. I want to make some single-page, full-year calendars for gifts this year. I was thinking something poster-sized, on a lightweight cardstock, and only about 10 copies. Are there any online printing companies that can do this for me for under $100 or so? I saw this question from last year, but all the sites linked to seem to only do large (250+) runs.

How to print one PDF page on two sheets of paper?

ask me please — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 04:07:54 -0800

Is there a simple way to print 1 A4 PDF over 2 sheets? I have been sent a long PDF with two pages of text squeezed onto each PDF page, meaning that on a standard A4 printer, I get two tiny pages of text on each printed A4 page. I'd really like to print the document with each PDF page as TWO printed pages. Is there a simple way to do this? Googling only seems to get me a large number of answers on how to solve the opposite problem.

If it matters: I'm running Windows on a Mac.

How to bypass Cafepress?

hellbient — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:02:44 -0800

I want to make my own t-shirts. How can I do my own personal version of Cafepress, Zazzle, etc.? Not Cafepress in the sense that I would set up a site and take orders, but Cafepress in that I want to actually print 1-off Photoshopped images onto a shirt. I don't want to do iron-ons, screenprinting or draw anything. Is this possible without spending several thousand dollars on a Fiery or whatever? I would settle for B&W printing if there was no color option. I haven't been able to come up with much from my searches, generally it's just a bunch of Cafepress wanna-be sites.

how to draw complex spirals

twine42 — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 05:48:23 -0800

How would I go about creating a much larger version of this image so I could print and frame it?

I want a fancy printer. How archival should my prints be?

actionpact — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 13:17:32 -0800

I'm looking into getting a nice printer for printing fine-art quality prints. Help me decide between a couple (Epson v. Canon), and let me know your opinion re: 'archival' quality... I've been toying with the idea of getting a nice printer and making good quality prints (on matte fine art paper, like Hahnemuhle) from my illustrations for a while now. Previous research had always gotten me to believe that pigment based printers were the way to go, as dye-based systems would fade over time, despite some initially brilliant color.

I was looking at the Epson R1900 as most illustrators/designers I know recommend Epsons for doing home studio printing. A friend of mine though suggested the Canon Pro9000MkII printer, which looks like a nice printer except for the fact it's dye-based. His explanation: Supposedly the prints can last 30-100 years which is pretty good for a $20-30 print he sells. Conversely, supposedly the ink based prints have truer colors and he largely prefers the Canon. I can't really fault that logic. But most everyone I see selling prints online sell pigment based prints and I wonder-- does that make a difference for the buyer? Obviously you're getting a print and not an original, but say you were buying a $25 print, would you be less likely to buy it if it were a dye-based ink or would that matter to you? By now the technology on these high end consumer products makes it so almost all the prints seem to be archival to a degree....

My friend is sending me a proof of one of my prints to show me, and I ordered a sample from Epson. It seems like the printers and their inks are largely comparable in price, so those aren't big issues. In the meantime all I can do is wait (tricky). But I guess my question is-- which one would be better for making quality art prints, and accurately hued ones at that? (and the easier the better, really-- I'm picky about color.) How archival would you expect a $20-30 print to be?

Mefites who own of either of these models of printers would be appreciated too. Especially if you print warmer hued images (I use oranges, peaches, purples a lot and I hear those are hardest to reproduce.) I just am having a hard time choosing between two printers who are both probably pretty good.

Trying to print Word documents with a specific preset from the Finder. Impossible?

bigmusic — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:22:04 -0800

OS X (10.5) Printing difficulties: Trying to print Word documents with a specific preset from the Finder. Impossible? I hate clicking documents open to print and then having to close them. I have to print up about 20 word documents in a folder multiple times every week - those documents should be printed with a 4x4 layout - single sided. (n-up 4 in CUPs speak) - I'm switching from Windows and in windows I had two printers installed (actually the same printer) with different layout options, so all I had to do was make sure the default printer was the one with right layout options. However, on OS X presets seem to be ignored if you print from the finder [Finder |File |Print], it goes with the "Standard" preset no matter how I try it, from the automator, the terminal, applescript. If I open it directly in Word, the correct preset always shows up as the default preset.

Things I've tried:
I've located the PPD file and didn't see an option to set up the N-Up 4x4 as an option anywhere.

I've option clicked the print button with the correct preset.

I've tried switching the printer preset in the terminal.

I've tried using the automator, with the supplied word 2008 actions.

I've looked at the cups documentation, and see that there is an option for using the 4x4, I'm just not sure how I would go about setting that option for a specific printer instance, or how I would print to to that specific printer instance - any clues?

Why have my Macbook and my printer broken up?

flowerofhighrank — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 22:04:11 -0800

why won't my macbook and my hp officejet printer talk anymore? Wirelessly, I mean. What can I do? It's an OfficeJet J6480 and I miss the way I could just hit print...and the printing would happen. Help?

Where should I purchase business cards for a small company?

davidriley — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:58:51 -0800

Where should I purchase business cards for a small company? Hi. I have a small company and need to have some business cards printed. We have the design; we just need someone to print it. We need cards for three people, with a minimum of 500/250/250. The design is 4/0, full color with a blank back.

We are based in Brooklyn and I like to work locally for printing, but that's not a requirement. We would like to work with a company that can help us with other printing needs in the future (brochures, letterhead, stickers, etc).

What we definitely want is a printer that is inexpensive (like, less than .25/card) and offers good quality paper stock. We want a heavy, strong card stock with a good feel to it. Matte. A place that offers spot gloss printing would be good, too.

I'd love to get letterpressed cards (two color), but I think it's a little too pricy for us, unfortunately.

So, do you know a printer that would be a good fit? Have you had a good/bad experience with a printing company? Any advice and recommendations are very much appreciated.