Do colour laser printers work well with parchment and silk thread papers?

November 28, 2006 4:59 PM

Do colour laser printers work well with parchment and silk thread papers?

My fiance and I are thinking of getting a colour laser printer to print out our invitations and other stationery for our wedding.
We only need this for a few months and know we can get at least 50% of the purchase price back from ebay etc when we sell it with warranty and most of the toner remaining.

But we will be using some unusual paper stocks - including silk thread (e.g http://www.formal-invitations.com/tiffany-invitation.html) and parchment type papers so before we buy does the hive mind have any experiences here?

posted by cwhitfcd to Technology (4 answers total)

Some general observations: Textured paper doesn't work well with either heavy toner coverage or delicate lines. My experience in this regard has mainly to do with linen papers, but your silk thread paper looks like it could be a problem (that's why it includes the printer-compatible vellum).

As for parchment, the main problem is making sure it's sturdy enough to not get stuck in the printer. To combat this when printing on delicate tracing paper, I always use a "carrier" sheet to pull the tracing paper through and keep it flat. Basically tape the delicate or oddly shaped paper to a regular letter-sized sheet with removable Scotch tape. Of course, this was for one-off designs. I wouldn't want to go through that setup if I was printing in any quantity at all.

You can almost certainly get samples of the paper. Before buying a printer, I'd visit a Kinkos and run a print test on their color printer to check the quality for any obvious problems. From my design school experience, this works best between midnight and 6am. Otherwise, printing on your own paper can be a problem.
posted by Jeff Howard at 5:32 PM on November 28, 2006

From previous experience, the color printers which worked best on textured paper were the Tektronix Phasers which smelted wax sticks and sprayed it onto the paper, similar to an ink-jet, but it wouldn't absorb into the paper and spider or run. They were persnickity about paper size, though. Pretty much had to be 8.5x11.

Black toner should flake and rub off the papers you described in about the same way that colored toner will. You can try your test prints in black and white to see what happens to your saturation on the page.
posted by FYKshun at 6:52 PM on November 28, 2006

I dont know about color lasers, but I have had good luck printing on odd papers (watercolor, arches) with just a standard inkjet printer. If you get a decent one it should allow you to set custom paper sizes, as well as select different media types. I found that setting the paper type to plain helps eliminate any bleed problems. The nice think about inkjets is that the spray fills in all the texture nicely.
posted by Pink Fuzzy Bunny at 9:52 PM on November 28, 2006

Just wanted to echo FYKshun's comments about Tektronixs printers. Both about their excellent wax coverage and their tendancy to paper jam if the paper is non-standard. Pink Fuzzy Bunny's comments about Inkjets are right on the money too. Really good for non-standard paper textures and sizes. You can spray your papers with hairspray to make them slightly more bleed-resistant before you print.
posted by Jeff Howard at 8:52 AM on November 29, 2006