[Printer Recommendation] Mass Printing Borderless B&W 4x6" Text Pages

[ivanalbright]

I print out around 1000 4x6 index card sized pages a week. The content is borderless (some layout elements "bleed" off the edges), 99% text, and black and white only. No color, no real graphics to speak of.

I am currently using a Canon Pixma Pro MK II to do this. Yes, I am using a large format photo printer to mass produce small black and white text printouts. This is why I need a different option. However, the Pixma Pro does print out quite fast, especially when compared to the two low end, normal sized HP inkjet printers I also tested. The HP printers also had constant paper jams/misfeeds, while the pixma pro only rarely does. I have a B&W laser printer which would be ideal due to the speed, but it cannot print borderless, which is a requirement.

I am looking for a different printer that would be ideal for this. Here are a few criteria I am hoping for:
-FAST. (printing hundreds would take forever otherwise)
-Consistent, quality paper feed (no paper jams or double paper feeds)
-Color is not important at all
-Overall print quality is not as important, as long as it provides "average" quality text
-Hopefully under $150, depending on what kind of features it offers.
-Cheap generic ink or easily refillable cartridges.

Thank you for any recommendations! This is a very specific use so looking around I have not been able to find much information on this.

 

[ivanalbright]

Any opinions to share?

To quickly sum it up again, I'm looking for a printer that can print tons (hundreds per week) borderless 4x6 black and white text pages quickly. (borderless is just for layout elements such as a black box that bleeds off the edge. Thanks for any help!

 

[ghwellsjr]

I don't know about other printers but my Canons will not use the normal pigment black ink cartridge when you specify borderless printing on plain paper, instead it switches to the dye black ink cartridge. Is that going to be an issue for you?

 

[ivanalbright]

Quality is completely a non issue, it just needs to be text that is not noticeably bad, with that in mind, it would actually be a waste to have two separate black cartridges. I just want to crank out these small pages with text on them. Being able to print 100 pages at once without a paper jam would be nice, I've had some HP printers that get paper jams/feed errors every 5 pages or so.

basically i just need a document printer that can do borderless. heck, if there were inkjet printers with ONLY a single black cartridge, that would work fine.

thanks for the response! i realize there probably isn't a big market out there for this, but I would think something would fit the bill:

-print speed
-quality paper feed
-black text only
-borderless 4x6

 

[ghwellsjr]

Are you printing on plain paper or some kind of photo paper?

The Pixma Pro series printers do not have a pigment black ink cartridge which is the reason why you have only one black cartridge. However, if you go with a smaller Canon printer that has fewer than six cartridges, you are either going to get five cartridges with two blacks or four cartridges with one black, but the one black will be a pigment black which won't be used for borderless printing, instead all three dye ink colors will be used to simulate black.

So if you are happy with the way your Pixma Pro prints and just want a smaller printer, I would suggest that you look for a used iP4000 on craigslist. Its cartridges do not have chips in them, making them very easy to refill or to buy cheap third party cartridges. This printer rarely ever jams the paper. However, it won't be as fast as your Pixma Pro.

What cartridges does your printer take?

 

[nche11]

You definitely don't want to use your Pro9000 MKII for this job. It is quite a waste of a pro photo printer and it won't do the job right. Sure, that's why you are looking for another printer. Any Canon printer that comes with a PGI-5, PGI-220 and 3 more CLI-8 or CLI-221 C, M and Y will be the best for this job. Canon ip3500 is one or ip4700 (one more CLI-221BK though) will really be one for this job. You get black pigment ink to print the text. That's really what you should print with. There is a trick to print borderless. Go into setup and set the paper size to custom and set it to slightly smaller than 4"x6". Another way to do it is to dowanload Avery software. You can figure out how to use it to do the job. Don't set the printer to print borderless. It would use some dye inks to print.

 

[ivanalbright]

I am printing on plain paper, and although I don't understand the why of it, if a pigment black cartridge isn't going to be used by default when going borderless, I'd rather not have it. (I would prefer not to have to mess with any workarounds as the real goal here is to just crank these pages out with as little issues as possible. I like to try to set about 50+ pages to print then walk away until its done).

I will look into the ip4000, thanks. how much slower are we talking here? Right now I print normal quality, grayscale only, and I output roughly 4-6 (estimating this) of the 4x6 text pages per minute. the HP printers I tried, with the same settings, did maybe 1 of the pages per minute, which was much too long.

Why should I be wanting to use a pigment black? I don't know much about that. Again, quality is really not important if thats the reason (as long as its not noticeably bad).

 

[ghwellsjr]

There are several advantages to using the pigment black ink cartridge on plain paper:

1) The pigment black cartridge holds twice as much ink as the dye black cartridge and only costs a dollar or so more.

2) The pigment black ink will not smear on the paper if it gets wet after printing.

3) The print head for the pigment black is more than twice as big as the dye black so it prints twice as fast.

4) The pigment black usually does just two passes instead of the normal four done by the dye black making it twice as fast again (four times total compared to dye).

Are you printing 50 identical copies at a time or are they all different? Are you concerned about the precise positioning of the image on the paper or can there be some variability? Is it absolutely necessary that the printed image go all the way to the edge of the paper, or would a 1/16 of an inch border be acceptable? Does the image have to run up to the border on all four sides or can it work with just two adjacent sides? Do you buy original Canon cartridges or compatibles or do you refill?

I will try nche's idea on my iP4000 and report how many pages per minute it can print.

If this works, you can use an iP3000 which has only one black cartridge, which is pigment.

 

[ivanalbright]

Ok, interesting, that would sound ideal to use the pigment black cartridge based on the speed benefits and capacity you mentioned...as long as it can be easily and reliably tweaked to print borderless.

-I generally print using generic cartridges (Canon CLI-8 carts are 1/3 the price), though I do reflll HP 21/22 cartridges because they are so easy...CLI-8 cartridges don't seem easy to refill.
-They are 50 identical copies at a time
-borderless is required (if not for this I would probably just use a laser printer), having 1/16 blank border would not work
-the borderless is 3 out of 4 sides (top+left+right, not bottom)


I look forward to hearing your results ghwellsjr
nche11 - if I use the trick for manually picking a smaller paper size, will the printout still be reliably centered and be borderless on both sides? That won't cause any problems?

Thanks!!

 

[ghwellsjr]

I cannot get the iP4000 to print borderless unless I tell it to do borderless and then it switches to the black dye ink. Nche, can you provide more details? Assume I will be printing from Paint.