Carbon paper possible on a non-DMP?

[facattack]

Here's the original question.

Hi Guys,

My boss has tasked me with finding a solution to our Dot Matrix Printer. Right now we buy dot matrix paper with our company log/pre-designed template on it. It's 6 Carbon Copies.

He now wants to see about eliminating the Dot Matrix (OkiData) Printer and using a laser printer & dropping down from 6 copies to 4.

For people who are in service, how does your company do it? I know our way is kind of in the stone age, but it works.

Some suggestions he had was a printer with 4 trays that we could print 1 copy to each colored tray (not sure if that is possible).

I told him he would buy collated paper, but it may not be cost efficient and we lose the carbon copy feature, which we used for proof of delivery/installation etc.

However, I think you can buy 2-3 play Carbon Paper that prints on a laser printer. I'm not sure how it turns out, has anyone tried it?

I know this is a crazy question, but any advice would be appreciated. I have to go do a price analysis of each method.

 

[pearce_jj]

Personally I'd suggest looking at the business processes, rather than focusing on the end-point technology, and work out why there are 4 or 6 copies in the first place and hence how those can be eliminated.

 

[commodorejohn]

How exactly would carbon paper even function on a non-impact printer? And is there a reason you couldn't simply print several copies?

 

[Tor]

Yep, won't work. A laser printer uses a laser to make powderized "ink" stick to a drum (the laser 'draws' the letters, the drum gets ionized, or anyway sticky, and the ink sticks to the drum in the pattern (text/images) you're after). The paper is rolled over the drum. The ink sticks to the paper. There's nothing there that can physically press through the paper to affect a carbon copy. The "impact" would be simply the thickness of the ink itself.. not much.

With a laser printer you just print the number of copies you need. Many printer applications will let you specify the number of copies so that you don't even have to actually 'print' it more than once.

-Tor

 

[Agent Orange]

Xerox comes to mind.

 

[NeXT]

Besides Dot Matrix, the only other readily available technology is Daisy Wheel.

 

[Chuck(G)]

Perhaps not "carbon paper", but multipart laser forms are indeed available.

There's a good reason for multipart business forms--each part is certifiably a "true copy" of the original, printed at the same time as the original.

 

[Agent Orange]

Perhaps not "carbon paper", but multipart laser forms are indeed available.

There's a good reason for multipart business forms--each part is certifiably a "true copy" of the original, printed at the same time as the original.

Depends on your needs. Reprintable laser forms run about 20-25 cents per copy or around 40-45 dollars for a box of 150 or so. If you're pumping out a lot of paper it doesn't seem very cost effective to me.

 

[Eudimorphodon]

So far as that laser-printer compatible carbonless stuff goes the thing to remember is that it doesn't work the same way as carbon paper during the mechanical printing stage. Impact-printer carbon forms of course come as a stack of papers bound together with adhesive on the edges. (Usually in the tractor feed area.) The way laser "carbon" paper works is you have a "front" paper, the one you later sign with a pen or something, and one to three "copy" sheets which have chemicals spread on their surfaces which interact under pressure with chemicals on the back of the sheet that goes on top. (The result is usually a blue or purple mark on the copies where a pen is pressed.) These sheets can go through the printer *individually* and have data printed on them but then they need to be assembled to produce a finished receipt/invoice/whatever.

The easiest way to use the stuff is to buy it pre-collated, where you'll get a pile of interleaved top-and-copy sheets you can just stuff in your single paper tray. Then when the time comes to print an invoice you simply run off two to four copies of it at once (depending on how many "carbons" you need in addition to the direct signing sheet), grab the stack off the printer, and staple the corner. It works pretty well if you're doing them one at a time. It sucks a bit if you're running off many receipts at once, however, unless you're using one of those big office printers that can handle fancy things like automatically stapling every nth page.

One advantage, of course, is since you're laser-printing every page there's no need to pay for pre-printed forms with your pretty company logo and form design on them. Just have the laser slap it on when printing the filled-out invoice.

 

[Chuck(G)]

All of that is one reason that dot=matrix printers are still around. But if you need "carbon paper" type of copies, there are methods.

Not that NCR paper was ever cheap.