Large Format Printers

[BCWatson]

I am Looking To print a few books on ANSI-C (22 in x 17 in) to result in 17 in x 11 in pages any body know of a good printer that Can handle this. My issue Begins when I visited my local Print Shop. The book consists of some text and some color diagrams and Images. I explained what I was doing and they figured out the pricing.

It was something like this 2 dollars per square foot printing each side.
one dollar each page to cut it down to the right size.
Folding is an extra Dollar.
so we are talking somewhere in the area of 8 to 9 dollars per 4 pages!

70 dollars per signature. Depending on what goes into it may be up to 7 signatures.

It ends up being around 500 dollars per book before actually binding. And I may need to have up to 10 books.


So I was thinking if I may be spending that much anyway I may as well buy a printer that can do the job

Also Cutting down the size is out of the question. The people I am doing this for want it that size

any thoughts would be appreciated

[marktweedie]

I have an Epson 2100 (the 2200 is equivalent state-side) which will print up to A3+ (483 x 330mm). It will only print in portrait orientation at this size. As the grain of paper often runs up and down, when you want to fold into signatures with the grain you end up with a maximum page width of 165mm (i.e. half the width of the paper). It is great for tall thin books! I have come to the conclusion that "guarding" the sheets (pasting two single sheets together after printing) is the only really viable way of using this printer for large books with the grain running laterally. This actually works quite well but may not be what you require.

The issue for you is getting paper of the correct weight with cross-wise grain direction if you wanted to use a printer like this and still be able to fold cleanly. If your 17" x 11" book were in landscape format you could then use paper in rolls which would make everything possible. If you wish to print portrait-format, then you will need paper of 22" width and an A3+ printer is not suitable, you will need a bigger model at substantially greater cost.

The Epson 2100 is no longer available and has been replaced by the R2400. The next model up is the Epson Stylus Pro 3800 printing A2+ (458 mm x 610 mm or 18 x 24 in). Here in the UK you would expect to pay 900GBP/$1800 which is about twice the price of the 2400. Whichever way you go with these large format Epsons you will get superb print quality. Ink costs are high so you might want to consider a continuous inking system rather than individual ink cartridges which will add another 50% or so the the initial cost but will repay itself many times over for large print runs, especially with photos.

The final thing to consider is that for accurate colour reproduction you will need to print using the correct ICC profile for the printer/paper combination you use and have a method of processing and outputting pages combining text and photos together which gives this colour fidelity without degrading the text output with aliasing.

I hope that helps. I have spent a lot of time puzzling this one out and as yet haven't really found the solution which fits my budget/quality requirements so I am still seeking the final answer myself! Good luck.

Mark

PS As an afterthought, if you are printing a large quantity of books you might find these desktop printers slow. Mine takes at least 5 minutes for a sheet of A3. The big Epsons may be quicker, you would have to enquire.

[BCWatson]

Wow Thanks for all the info.

A bit of an overload but lots to mull over.

again I appreciate your info and thoughts.

[nermander]

As you already have discovered, planning your product is the key to make it cost effective.

To print as cheap as possible you need to make sure you use each printed sheet efficiently and minimize cutting and other extra processing as much as possible.

[steeveherris]

Yes if you have a work of printing of your documents and a book for yours and feel that the quotations are really high, so the best option to buy a printer that proves to be fruitful for you and really low budget.

[ericcarter13]

One of my office mates has a GCC Elite XL 40n black and white laser printer that can print on 12" x 18" paper. I use it for 100% of my in-house (50% sized) check sets and only send out for full sized or color prints. It is 4 years old and still on its first toner cartridge. I find the reduced sized sets really handy and rarely make a full sized set for myself.