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Sunday, November 8, 2015

Large & Full-Bleed

What options are available if you want to do large labels?  When I say “large”, I mean greater than ~8” wide.

Large Label
Larger than 8" label

I’ve been asked this question before; but I did not have any real good options.  Until now.

In addition, I’ve been asked about the best way to print beautiful, full-bleed labels. Professional printers die cut post printing; insuring the labels are printed to the edge. I’ve written about printing full-bleed using die cut labels: http://colorlabelsondemand.blogspot.com/2015/06/lx2000-full-bleed-color-label-printer.htmlBut it’s difficult to produce full-bleed every time; until now. 

If you need large labels, one option is to use the large format printers from Epson®
; the T-Series printers.

T-Series

These affordable printers produce beautiful, high resolution images in widths from 10” up to 44” wide; and with the built-in cutter, you can cut your label to length.  

What’s more interesting to me as a label reseller, the T-Series printers use the same ink as the ColorWorks® label printers.  This feature means all of the label media qualified for the Epson ColorWorks printers function with the T-Series.  Matte Paper, Gloss Paper and Matte Poly.  No need to requalify label media.  Plus the T-Series offers BS5609 approved labels as well.  To learn more about BS5609, see our much earlier post:  http://colorlabelsondemand.blogspot.com/2012/03/bs5609-is-no-bs.html

If you only need to print a limited number of labels, you can purchase the affordable T-3270 printer with up to 24” print width; and then print/cut.  Easy to do.  Plus you can print labels using a Mac driver; effectively no other color label printers offer a MAC driver.

Large Label

 (The LX900 is the exception.  http://www.primeralabel.com/support/lx900.html.  However, the print head for the LX900 is no longer in production.  Therefore, we don’t recommend this product).

We even printed die cut labels using the T-Series printers.

Die Cut Label
Die Cut Label
Beautiful print; but difficult to print full-bleed.

If you want to print full-bleed labels, you can produce them perfectly on-site by printing with the T-Series printer with the optional rewinder, and then cutting using the iTech cutter from Allen Datagraph (ADSI).

iTech Cutter
iTech Cutter

According to Mark Sullivan, Label System Manager, “ADSI's iTech Cutters systems are high performance material cutting systems. We leveraged the technology from these cutters to develop our current label finishing systems. Our cutters include ADSI's DirectCUT™ driver: which enables you to cut directly from software packages such as CorelDRAW®, Adobe Illustrator®, AutoCAD®, AutoCAD Lite® and others.”


Mark continues, “With ADSI's exclusive SmartMark, our cutters automatically capture up to three printed registration marks, adjust the scale and skew, and precision cut your assigned objects. We also have a built-in test-cut function; which saves media.  There’s no need to run a job to test your cut depth.”

To test the large and full bleed label solution using the T-Series printer and iTech cutter from ADSI, we printed full-bleed 4” x 6” labels, 2 UP along with a registration mark.  We then added die lines to mark where to cut the labels using the ADSI’s SmartMark.  Finally, we ran print job through the cutter; yielding great looking 4” x 6” full-bleed labels.

Full-Bleed Die-Cut Label
Full-Bleed Die-Cut Label

You can see the cut lines that enable the matte poly 4” x 6” label to be removed from the liner.

Full-Bleed Die-Cut Label

Perfect full-bleed labels every time for a fraction of the hardware price of most finishers.

With one last key point about the cutters, Mark adds, “ADSI’s iTech Cutters are made in and supported from the USA. Our support team has decades of industry experience and are just a phone call away.”

If you need or even think you need large labels or perfect full-bleed labels every time, contact us to discuss your requirements further.  I like to understand your needs; and ideas on how this large format printer and cutter may fit your situation.

Guy Mikel
855-962-7670

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