The finish of a project is an essential part of any document, presentation or collateral piece, but few people consider folding an important aspect of finishing. However, a proper fold can give your project a professional, crisp look to match the rest of your document. The best way to get the perfect fold is to find a paper-folding machine that meets your needs and those of your business.
Automated letter and paper folders can not only save a great deal of time, but can give the perfect finish to flyers, bills, bulletins, insert ads and brochures, among many other projects. Automatic paper folders use pre-set, push-button folds contained in a memory chip. Because of this, you can choose a fold and paper size with the touch of a button. Manual folders are also an option, with setscrews that can be used to adjust to the proper fold and sheet size.
The majority of paper folders will fold a letter size sheet into one of several popular fold-types: letter fold, gatefold, a-z fold, half fold, engineering fold and double parallel fold. Paper folders can be used in commercial operations, small businesses, banks, schools and churches. If one of the popular, standard folds doesn’t meet your needs, make sure you choose a higher-end folder with an override mechanism, so you can customize the fold to your requirements.
Set-up is also an important consideration. If your projects change from folding pattern to folding pattern, the best folder would be one that has digital plate adjustment as a feature - or at least a folder with a plate preset with a 90 degree angle to the paper’s path. This way, your projects run smoother with less set up time and less monitoring.
Once you understand your folding needs, and you’re ready to make your purchase, you can find selections in a variety of retail locations. You can try a retail superstore, for basic machines at low prices, but they may not have the selection, quality or knowledge you are looking for. Buying directly from a manufacturer is also another option. This option generally provides a great deal of product knowledge, but if they actually sell directly, they only sell one brand of equipment - theirs. One of the best options is an online retailer with a big selection, knowledge of a variety of products, and available maintenance plans.
No matter where you purchase your folder, however, make sure to find a retailer who will back up their sale and be available to answer questions and help you through any difficult situations.
A paper folder can be an excellent option for document and collateral finishing and one that can save time and trouble. So take the time to do the research involved to make the right decision - on the folder, and the retailer you need.
There are many different varieties of paper products in the world today. We use them for everything from newspapers and magazines to writing letters (good old-fashion snail-mail), from colorful banners at a party, to household cleaning products. And, then there is bumper sticker paper. Not exactly the sort of thing you would expect there to be a lot of literature about. After all, it is a pretty basic commodity.
Typically, this paper comes in large rolls or small sheets; it all depends on who is going to be doing the printing. When it is a private firm, they are naturally interested in saving money. So, they buy it in bulk. But, there days, what with so many people doing the old do-it-yourself routine, you can now get bumper sticker paper in sheets for the average home computer printer. A lot of people like the idea of creating their own bumper stickers. Of you think about it, it makes sense. Why drive all over the place (especially given the price of gas!), looking for just the right one and not find it? Well, if you buy some sheets of paper, you can print your own.
Then, as strange as this may sound, there are actually different kinds available. First, there is the standard size - generally about three inches by ten inches. Next, there is the large size - it is usually four inches by twenty inches. Finally, you have the one with the magnetic backing. While this is the most expensive of the bumper sticker paper available, it does have the delightful feature of being reusable. These days, more and more people are concerned with the environment. The old-fashioned type has the problem of being a “one-hit wonder.” You put it on your car’s bumper, and that is it. No changes, no moving it - nothing. Now, with the magnetic style, you can reuse your bumper sticker over and over: a good deal for you, and better still for the environment.
So, when you are looking at different types of bumper sticker paper - whether for home use, or for large quantities,carefully consider all the pluses and minuses of what is out there. Sometimes, paying a bit more for good quality paper will pay off in the long run.
As a company that sells jerseys for various sports team across the nation, we often have the opportunity of printing logos and numbers on the jersey. In order to provide our service at a competitive price, we have recently decided to find an alternative to the cost for the materials for screen printing. While many of the choices that we could make could have a huge effect on the quality of the finished jersey, we decided to look for an alternative that would not affect the quality. The solution that we found was to replace the expensive film with vellum paper.
Vellum, meaning a translucent white writing surface has been around for a long time. Originally it was used by the ancient Hebrews and was prepared from animal skins. A few thousand years later, in the 19th century, a type of paper was created with similar characteristics to the ancient Hebrew vellum. This paper, vellum paper, in now available in various colors and sizes. For a screen printer, a semi-translucent white vellum paper seems to be a great cost alternative to the expensive film that can be used to transfer an image from a computer to a screen for printing.
While researching into this alternative, I had to take in to account whether or not this would affect the quality of the prints. I found that for our setup, this would really have no effect on the outcome of our products. In our office, we print our digital art with an EPSON R1800 Inkjet Printer. The quality of the initial print with the given paper will work great with our setup. The research shows that Inkjet printers do just fine with vellum paper, whereas Laserjet printers don’t seem to work as well for vellum paper.
With this discovery, I decided to investigate further in this matter. One negative effect that the vellum paper can have is that it tends to shrink over time. This can be a problem if you are printing logos with multiple colors. It can make it more difficult to match up the negatives after they have been filed over a long period of time. For our business, this tends to not be a problem as most of the logos that we print are only one color, which means that matching up patterns typically is not a problem for us.
With this decision, it appears that we will be able to save a little bit of money and therefore be able to more easily compete with the other screen printing businesses. Before this, we were paying nearly $1.00 per 8.5 x 14 sheet of film, where as with this new alternative, we will be paying roughly $.10 per sheet.
So, if you are using an Inkjet printer designing mostly one color prints, go for the less costly alternative to the transparent film and start using vellum paper.
Sometimes there are things in life that are very obvious. In the medical billing world, this isn’t always the case. Many on the outside would automatically think that electronic billing of claims is the sure pick over sending paper claims via the United States Post Office. And while electronic billing certainly does have its advantages, is it really the be all and end all of medical billing? In this article, we’re going to take a good look at each method of sending claims. Sometimes the grass is greener but sometimes it isn’t.
Let’s take a look at the facts of each type of billing. With paper claims, you have to either manually fill out the claims by hand, especially if you’re a small office and can’t afford expensive software, or at best you need the software to fill out the claims as they are printed off your dot matrix or laser printer. Most software products for this industry don’t support Inkjet printing. For that matter, most carriers won’t accept anything but laser quality anyway.
With paper claims, you also have the wait. Because insurance carriers are desperately trying to move on over to electronic billing, they process paper claims at a snails pace. It could be anywhere from 30 to 60 days to get paid on your paper claim. This is not a maybe. This is indeed a fact. Paper claims get paid slower.
Another fact of paper claims is that they carry the additional cost of having to keep forms in inventory. These forms are not cheap. Even if you get them included in your software package, the cost of billing a paper claim, at least on a per claim basis, is much higher than electronic transmissions.
Another fact of paper claims is that they have to be mailed. This adds the cost of postage to the already high cost of paper claim billing. Plus, with paper claim billing, there is always the chance that a claim can be lost in the mail. While this is not necessarily a given that it will happen, it is a definite possibility.
Now, let’s look at the facts of electronic billing. For starters, electronic medical billing is faster. The claims are literally transmitted to the insurance carrier in a matter of seconds, depending on how big the claim file is. Larger files do take longer, but for the most part, this is a much quicker process.
Electronically billed claims get paid faster. There is no question about this. Insurance carriers do this as an incentive for medical billing agencies to use electronic billing methods.
Electronic billing requires software and transmission hardware such as a modem or an Internet connection. This adds an expense to electronic billing that you don’t have with paper claims. This is a fact. There is no way to send claims electronically without some kind of software and transmission device.
Those are the facts of each. On the surface, it appears that electronic billing is the hands down choice. But before you make that decision, you must realize that unless you have a large enough client base to justify electronic billing, the cost of the software alone might make it unprofitable. Plus, with electronic billing, you’re going to have technical issues that you won’t have with paper claims, meaning you’re going to have to hire a networking staff and other technical persons.
The truth is, there is no perfect world with either paper claims or electronic transmission. So please consider all factors before deciding which way you’re going to go.