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Stationery |
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With a bit of patience, a computer and a printer, you can make good-looking stationery. There are several programs that provide you with the creative tools to send a personalised card and envelope to your friends and relatives when needed, or to create your own personal or business cards. Alternatively, websites which provide such services tend to multiply.
With such software (cost between £15 and £30), you can also design and print banners, gift wrap, tags and so on. If you're throwing a party, you can make invites, place names and menu cards - and even design iron-on transfers for t-shirts, if you want to coordinate your guests' attire.
There are also image-collection programs. This kind of software is packed with photos and clipart (cartoons) that you can use with greetings card software to improve the look of your designs, and costs about £20.
A colour inkjet printer that's not more than two or three years old is essential to get the most from stationery printing. The websites/programs also have a big part to play in the printing process, and some are much better than others. In particular, print preview and help on paper or card loading and orientation are important. Without these, printing might often become a frustrating task.
Most stationery applications make two sizes of greetings card. Folding an A4 page in half makes the traditional 'half-fold card'; fold in half again to get a 'quarter-fold card'. Printing a quarter-fold card is fairly straightforward as the page goes through the printer only once for the front picture and inside text to be correctly placed. Half-folds are more complicated as they involve two passes through the printer. If you put the sheet the wrong way for the second pass, the text comes out upside down or on the wrong bit of the card. The best stationery programs and websites guide you through this process and propose a half-fold printing wizard.
Canon, Epson, Hewlett Packard, PC World and others make packs of cards and envelopes for inkjet printers. You can buy glossy ones if you want to include photos, or textured and off-white ones for a classier feel.
Expect to pay between 30p and 65p per card and envelope. Don't forget to factor in the cost of ink cartridges, too: on average, this could add up to 50p to each card. So making your own won't save much, if anything, on the annual Chris tmas card mail-out (charity Chris tmas cards come in at around 50p each). However, compared with the cost of single birthday and other occasion cards, which cost at least £1.50, and also in the case of business cards, making your own fares more favourably. Most stationery websites and software also enable you to send e-cards, which saves you the cost of printing and stationery altogether.
We hope that this is a nice start towards selecting the stationery website or software that will suit your needs. To help you carry on with your research, we have selected a few websites that specialise in offers and good deals on stationery. Click on the links of your choice on the right hand side of the screen and as always, don’t forget to compare before buying!
© Before-buying.co.uk 2006 |
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