laser-lovers@uw-beaver (04/17/85)
From: imagen!geof@Shasta I routinely feed Avery brand regular (i.e., not special for laser printers) self-adhesive removable labels through the 8/300's (LBP-CX's) manual paper feed with no ill effects. Try and find a gummed label with a back side that is not heavily waxed, to minimize slipping. I also feed envelopes through the printer. A business envelope fits through the manual feed slot only the long-way through, so you have to get the printer to print the address (and return address) sideways. Regular envelopes are a bit thick for the feeding mechanism. I find that they feed well if you maintain light pressure with one or two fingers BEFORE the printer grabs the paper and starts to pull it, to get the envelope started through the paper path. Laser printed envelopes look VERY official. I've generated several scribe and Interleaf forms for generating envelopes, business cards, and addresses. The easiest way to get results is just to use "language printer" (the line printer emulation) and use your tex editor or a custom program to pad out the right number of spaces and cr-lf's. This still looks as good as a selectric. In fact, I sometimes prefer a typewriter emulation, since the fancy type causes some recipients to thing they are getting a form (junk) letter. For Imagen users out there, there is a document header option for the 8/300, "inputbin manual", that causes the printer to switch to manual feed for the job and back to automatic feed for the job header and subsequent jobs. It is easier than playing with the printer's console (especially if you don't have one!). If your spooling software doesn't know about this option, you can add it in yourself, before spooling a "raw" file. On unix, use: % echo -n "@document(inputbin manual)" | cat - filetoprint | LINEPRINTER where the -n switch suppresses the newline at the end of the echo command (if you don't have this switch, you can create a file with the right thing in it, and cat that file). LINEPRINTER is your spooler program (e.g., ipr). Don't forget that the final ) must not be followed by a newline, or you stand to get gibberish all over your nice, clean envelopes. - Geof Cooper Imagen
laser-lovers@uw-beaver (04/19/85)
From: mark@cbpavo (Mark Horton) If you buy ONE THING from one of the supplies-and-accessories companies that sell via mail order catalogs, you will instantly be on every mailing list for such things in the world. I get 2 or 3 copies of such catalogs now, because I once bought a printer stand/muffler. Some of them are quite specialized: one I got seemed aimed at stationary for dentists. What I'm leading up to is that there is a big industry out there that makes special stationary, forms, and the like with your logo/address printed on them in your favorite font. Opening up the UARCO catalog on the top of the pile, for example, I see a number of kinds of envelopes with sprocket holes on the sides, designed to go through a typical pin feed printer. Prices start at $35.70 for 500 unimprinted continuous form envelopes, and go as high as $177 for 1000 fancy two color printed envelops on ultra-high quality paper. (Cheap printed envelops are under $100/thousand, down to $71.65/thousand if you get 6000 or more at once.) Such envelopes are not designed for laser printers, but would work well with a cheap desktop printer or a daisy wheel. I suspect that there are some that are intended for a Xerox machine (ala 8 1/2 x 11 gummed labels) that would work OK in a laser printer, but I don't see any mention of such things in this catalog. (Most of the catalogs wind up at home, the UARCO one happens to be handy now.) I'm not trying to plug UARCO in particular, as I'm sure that others are comparable, I just have their catalog handy - if anyone wants more details, UARCO is in DeKalb Illinois, and their phone is 800-435-7013. The Drawing Board, at 800-243-3207, has similar stuff. Another trick that mass personalized mailers use (e.g. everybody who sends you a monthly bill) is to get envelopes with your address printed on the return area and a window to put the address through. Then you can print the address on a fixed location on the letter and it shows through. These places, of course, carry these envelopes too. There are various kinds of ugly little memos with space for the two addresses and the message on one side of a form, directly mailable, if you don't mind being tacky. And, of course, you can print on labels and stick them on the blank envelope - there are no doubt lots of labels intended for Xerox machines that will work well in a laser printer, especially if you're willing to batch them. Mark