When a company is promoting .35 a color copy, keep in mind two things: (1) It is only for a limited time; (2) 35 cents only includes single-sided documents (double the price for dual-sided copy work).

Some folks confuse offset printing with copier printing, meaning clients that are doing a copy job sometimes feel the price of service should trend downward when less color is used. Pricing according to the number of colors printed is a model that is used in offset printing (i.e. a 2-color project costs less than a 3-color project).

Copiers work on a per-click model. Everytime a service provider prints an impression (one side of an 8.5 x 11 page), they are charged a click, and each click costs a contracted amount of money (usually cents). Regardless, of how much toner is being used or not used, the click charge remains the same. Thus, service providers usually have a low and high range of what they are willing to charge per impression, but the price does not change based on what color is being used.

The low range tends to be around .39 per copy, but that price is misleading because it is based on each impression (single side), so a client would need to double that price for double-sided documents. Also, that price is usually a temporary loss leader anyway. The high range is typically around .88, and this does not matter if it is a single-sided document or double-sided document, so a client ends up spending more than they need to if they are printing single-sided documents.

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When does it make sense, in terms of pricing, to print my flyers on offset press?

This post explores when the quantities of color copy work and offset press match up in the total price. Keep in mind, the pricing is very general and is based on the pricing ProjectCenter offers to its clients.

Description of materials:
Copier- 8.5 x 11 regular color copy paper
Offset- 8.5 x 11 100lb Gloss Book

390 single-sided, or 240 double-sided Copy = 100 Offset
615 single-sided, or 375 double-sided Copy = 250 Offset
660 single-sided, or 405 double-sided Copy = 500 Offset
715 single-sided, or 450 double-sided Copy = 1000 Offset

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It is important to know that running a straight copy or print on a copier will produce non-printed borders. In other words, copiers inherently will not allow a client to print in full-bleed (artwork to the edge of the page). Copiers automatically produce around a 1/4″ border around the artwork.

In order to circumvent this limitation, a client would need to print the artwork on a paper size that is larger than the artwork specs, and then have the pages cut down to size. The cut will be placed just inside the outer edge of the artwork, subsequently allowing the artwork to cover the entire page.  Keep in mind though, that the service provider will mostly likely charge for this sort of work.

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Common logic would suggest that having the outside of a booklet printed on 100lb gloss cover, and printing the inside pages on gloss text, would be a good idea . Clients want to do this to differentiate the cover from the internal pages. Be aware that there is an issue with that, if the service provider is running a project on a copier.

If you are doing a basic fold and saddle stitch process, the artwork will tend to crack when the 100lb gloss cover page is folded. This is because of the combination of the way a copier prints to a page (more on this in a future post), and the thickness of the stock.

The good news is that artwork tends to be designed to proactively differentiate the cover from the internal pages anyway. If that is not enough, then consider printing the cover in color and the internal pages in black & white. Or use a different binding option altogether, such as spiral plastic coil, comb bind, etc.

ABOUT PROJECTCENTER:

ProjectCenter is a single-source service company providing marketing and document solutions to small, medium and large-sized businesses in the U.S. area. ProjectCenter is based in Phoenix, Arizona and its services include graphic design, web design, printing, copying, scanning and mailing. For more information, please call (602) 252-6655 or visit  www.makepapereasy.com.

Sometimes there are marketing clients that like to replicate a dollar bill as part of their marketing piece.  One has to be very careful as to how close the artwork matches the actual dollar bill. If it is too close of a match, a copy machine will literally lock up, and a service manager needs to come out to unlock the machine.

The suggestion would be to make the artwork look like a cartoon (‘funny money’) version of the real dollar.

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It may be simple to press a button on a machine, but not when the project is too involved (i.e. multiple sizes of paper, multiple colors of paper, different finishing, etc.). The more complicated the job is, the more time it will take to complete and the more the likelihood that errors will occur. This is why there are specialty Copy Service companies in the industry today.

One might think that a good idea would be to hire copy staff, but copy projects only happen in bursts. So what happens when a copy staffer doesn’t have any copy work to do? The answer is that the company ends up paying more in salary than they would if they would have just outsourced the work. Futhermore, and to be quite honest, copy work is redundant and boring, so it is difficult to maintain a low employee turnover rate.

How about leasing some copiers and locating them onsite? Unfortunately, end-users (public) do not get nearly the discounts in leasing like the Copy Service companys do. Arguably, end-users end up paying more on their monthly lease than they would pay a Copy Service company to do the job. That doesn’t even take into consideration the maintenance cost and maintenance time copiers require.

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Let’s face it- pushing a button on a copier is not hard to do. Other than knowing the maintenance aspects of a copier, the hardest part of copy jobs is the organization of the project. Organization goes hand in hand with efficiency, and efficiency means more quality jobs done in a shorter period of time.

The legal industry utilizes copy services quite often, because their documents tend to be mix-matched. Imagine for a moment that an investigator came to a client’s place of work and said “I am going to need to take all your files pertaining to _____.” Typically, the investigator would jam all the documents in a box without much care and run off with them. These unorganized documents then get plopped on a lawyers desk. It’s the attorney’s responsibility to get those documents sorted out, and this where a copy service company comes into the picture.

In no particular order, these documents can be different colors, different sizes, some stapled, some not stapled, some folded, some single-sided, some double-sided, etc. It is up to the copy service company to copy these documents (usually for opposing councel) exactly the way the box(es) were presented. This is why it is important to have organization skills. Otherwise, it will take days to get a job done, and unfortunately lawyers always need their projects done yesterday.

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