HELPFUL HINTS FOR PRE-PRINTING PRIOR TO LASER

A few words of advice…..

It is important that precautions are taken to ensure the best quality laser printing results. We

would therefore recommend that the following steps are taken to ensure optimum quality:

1. When material is subsequently to be used on a page printer, it is recommended that the

job is formatted to allow a final long grain A4 sheet to be presented to the laser printer.

Sheets cut to short grain A4 are more likely to curl after laser printing.

2. The design should avoid heavy solid coverage on the reverse side behind the area that is

to be laser printed.

3. Condition the paper in the pressroom prior to removal of the wrappers. This means that

the paper to be pre-printed (offset litho) should be allowed to come to the temperature of

the press room before opening and printing. The paper should only be unwrapped

immediately prior to this first conversion process.

4. It is essential to protect the paper from the surrounding atmosphere by use of stack

covers, waterproof wrappers or shrink wrap. This will prevent moisture take-up or loss.

5. Laser compatible/fully oxidizing inks should be used. We would recommend you contact

your ink supplier to advise the most suitable product.

6. It is essential that press damping is kept at a minimum, preferably using alcohol damping

and if possible the use of spray powder should be avoided.

7. A sharp guillotine blade should be used for any subsequent trimming to avoid burred

edges.

8. Pre-printed material should be moisture proof wrapped to ensure no loss or take-up of

moisture between the offset litho and laser printing processes.

9. If possible allow the wrapped material 48 hours to condition in the laser print room before

use and unwrap only as needed.

10. We recommend papers that carry a laser pre-print guarantee for best results. However,

should you wish to use a quality not guaranteed for laser operations, then provided that

appropriate care is taken acceptable results may be possible, but in such cases a trial is

strongly recommended first.