Hi there, I'm new to the forum so bear with me - and even newer to printing terminology!

We are a web design business primarily, and have just started leasing a Bizhub C5500 which we hope will help bring in more varied work for us.

I've hundreds of questions but want to check that its OK to ask them?

Things like ...

How do we produce duplex business cards via Photoshop or Illustrator for example

Any assistance would be appreciated.

Thanks

You know how tricky and hard everything is with web development? How making things standards compliant and still readable across 4 browsers is like pulling teeth?

Printing is just as hard!

Double sided business cards? You need to run them through twice- the weight is too much. You REALLY need to get Quite Imposing Plus, it's expensive but you might as well quit now if you are not willing to get it.

Find a mentor, an independent printer or someone in the printing business that you can outsource your jobs to who will also answer a lot of your questions. You need more than just a printer, you need a lot of equipment. Register at 4Over.com and send any of the trickier stuff there.

Good luck

-Zac

I agree with him. Once you jump you've got to follow through. Otherwise your customers will suffer and you in-turn will too.

Hi all,
If you bought it from Konica minolta direct you are entitled to 6 hours of professional services training.
2 sided printing from the driver is impossible from PhotoShop or Illustrator. I was a designer for 10 years. You would have to manually duplex it just as indolering said.
PhotoShop is for printing images - you will also get better results if you print from a word processing or design software such as InDesign (part of the Adobe Design package) or even Publisher (if you have to go there). I would stay away from Word - there is now way to reproduce Pantone colors in Word. If you have the latest System Software on the Fiery or Creo you can print Pantone colors from Publisher.

If you don't mind me asking how much are you leasing it for over what period.

Just curious as I'm researching few stuff about leasing.

I have been using a biz hub C5500 for the past couple of years with work, we do a lot of printing out source with a litho printers but have found in the past that a large majority of our customers take up on our high turnaround in house printing.

A good example is business cards. The machine does have its limitations, double sided print on anything above 200gsm can be tricky as the image shift settings on the printers driver comes in to play (free feel to ask if needed). Also the way you trim any particular job must be very precise as you cannot always guarantee centred print with this machine.

On the up side for small runs once you fully understand the machines limits there are huge possibilities. We have used ours for pub menu's tri folded flyers, double sided business cards, tent cards and more!

Get in touch if you require more detail.

Regards