Question What kind of 800 dollar printer can print on cardboard folded into covers for a zine.

David_24

Distinguished
Aug 26, 2015
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I'm making a full color zine with the drawings I've made to sell to people. I want to put a hard cover cardboard like material on teh front. And then print on both back and frontof the pages with a low cost per page possibly for ink.
I also gotta buy a really good stapler to get through that and the pages.
My budget is 800 Canadian Dollars but I'm willing to hear about other priced options. even higher.
 

Ralston18

Titan
Moderator
You are going into the world of commercial printers.

Google "cardboard printers" for an initial list of potential printer products.

Based on the results, revise your search criteria to focus on printers that will meet your requirements.

Once you have a list of candidate products then apply your budget.

However, for commercial purposes, you may well need to increase your budget.

Consider the need for multiple paper/cardboard/stock trays.

I.e., the hard cover cardboard front page is pulled from one tray followed by the other paper pages in another tray, followed by a stapler to assemble the final "zine" product.

I do not think that staples will work even if applied along the standard left side margin. And certainly not if applied in the upper left corner of the "zine".

For the most part you may need spiral binding so readers can easily turn the pages.

It may be more viable for you to do some portion, but not all, of the printing. Then use a commercial printing service for final assembly and binding.

Find a "zine" that is assembled as you would like your drawings to be assembled. Then track backwards to discover who/how that "zine" came to be.