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Participant
August 16, 2019
Question

Looking for advice in purchasing a good printer for high quality hang tags

  • August 16, 2019
  • 2 replies
  • 319 views

Hello, I'm looking for advice on purchasing a printer. I work as a graphic designer for a wholesale handbag company and we're looking to switch some of out hang tag printing to in house. This would basically be to print about 100 or so tags for our bags (basically misc info like if the bag has a second usable pouch etc). These prints need to be high quality, and printed on relatively thick stock between 10 - 15pts.

In my research, I narrowed down the options to higher end inkjets and we purchased an Epson Surecolor P400 for the job, but I really am not satisfied with the print quality. I purchased some inkjet papers to test out the product and the results were less than stellar at worst, and average at best (Which I can't wrap my head around, all the reviews of this product were fantastic. My only guess is because I didn't specifically use Epson inkjet paper, though all the papers purchased were from the paper mill store and were good inkjet papers in general).

Really looking for guidance on this, I'm quite stuck. We would really like a professional look to our tags. If anyone has any suggestions on printers that can do the job, please let me know.

Example of what sort of things we would be printing:

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2 replies

Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
Legend
August 17, 2019

Disagree with Derek's comment.

Inkjets are great for printing photos. But everything else is "meh."

One problem with inkjets is that the ink isn't stabilized well enough to use for your product hang tags. Ink will come off on customers' fingers or smear onto the product itself. Gets worse when moisture is in the mix.

Look for a professional press/graphics-quality laser printer, such as the OKI Data Color Production series. https://www.oki.com/us/printing/products/light-production/index.html

The toner is 1200 dpi and produces a near-offset printing quality printed piece. We have the C931e model for printing our in-house textbooks for the printing and graphics design industry (one really tough customer to please!). We print on 22 lb regular stock, as well as various coated and card stocks. All beautiful, from small text to photos to high-end cover designs.

The pro series is genuine Adobe® PostScript® so with color management, you should be able to get good accurate color, too.

This series is a large-sized printer, not a little desktop printer that is easily moved around. So when you buy it, you must buy the stand for it to sit on and maybe additional paper trays, folding units, etc. It ends up being the size of an office photocopier.

If it (or its price tag) is too much for your needs, look at the smaller desktop models by OKI. https://www.oki.com/us/printing/products/color/index.html  We've had them in the past and were very satisfied with the results. Again, look for genuine Adobe® PostScript® in the technical specs to ensure you'll get the best quality printing.

|    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer, Trainer, & Technologist for Accessible Documents ||    PubCom |    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |
rob day
Community Expert
Community Expert
August 18, 2019

One problem with inkjets is that the ink isn't stabilized well enough to use for your product hang tags. Ink will come off on customers' fingers or smear onto the product itself. Gets worse when moisture is in the mix.

I think that depends on the ink. Epson’s Ultrachrome pigmented inks are light fast and waterproof. I use them with my large format inkjet for outdoor displays.

Derek Cross
Community Expert
Community Expert
August 16, 2019

Basically it's inkjets for quality and lasers for speed.