If you’ve seen our Letterpress printing guide, you know we love the deep impression Letterpress creates. However, some designs need more color than Letterpress can offer, or Letterpress is simply out of the budget.
If you are looking for bright watercolor effects, full-color photos, or if you’re a designer working with a tight budget, digital and inkjet printing on handmade paper is a great choice.
Yes, you can run our handmade paper through a digital printer! But keep in mind it takes a little more work and can be frustrating at times. Will walk through some options if you would like to do it yourself, or we are happy to print it for you!
Why Digital on Handmade Paper?
Letterpress is a beautiful relief printing method, but it requires a custom plate for each color. Digital printing, on the other hand, sprays tiny droplets of ink directly onto the surface of the paper. It opens up a whole new world of possibilities that Letterpress can not:
- Full-Color Capabilities: Perfect for intricate illustrations, multicolored artwork, gradients, and photography.
- Cost-Effective: No custom plates. If you have a colorful design or are on a limited budget, this is the option for you.
- Speed: Faster turnaround times for those last-minute creative projects.
The Professional Route vs. The DIY Route
Printing digitally on handmade paper can go one of two ways.
1. The Professional Route
If you have a large run of Luxury wedding invitations or curated day-of stationery, don’t try to feed hundreds of deckled-edge sheets through your home office printer. At Porridge Papers, we have a specialized digital press we can calibrate for the varying thickness and texture of our handmade stock. Send us your print-ready PDF design, and we will handle the printing.
2. The DIY Home Inkjet Route
Are you a brave, hands-on creative doing a small batch at home? We respect the hustle! But you have to be incredibly careful. Make sure you use the right kind of printer, and we'll cover that next.
The DIY Inkjet Survival Guide
If you are going to tackle this yourself, choosing the right printer and adjusting the settings are key. As a rule of thumb, our handmade paper is comparable to 140lb cardstock or 250gsm, so it won’t behave like standard cardstock.
The Rules to Follow
- Use a Top-Loading Inkjet Printer: This is the most crucial step! Do not use a printer with a bottom tray that forces the paper to bend over rollers. Handmade paper is thick and will jam instantly. You need a top-loading printer with a straight paper path (Canon Pixma or Epson fine-art photo printers are great choices).
- NO to Laser Printers: Laser printers use intense heat to fuse toner to the page. Because handmade paper varies slightly in thickness, the toner tends to flake off the textured surface. Stick to inkjet!
- Hand-Feed Every Single Sheet: Don’t put a stack of 50 deckled-edge sheets in the rear tray and walk away. Handmade paper has a textured, uneven surface that doesn’t feed through the machine easily. Feed each sheet one by one, gently pushing it so the printer’s rollers can grab it evenly.
- Adjust Your Platen Gap (Thickness Settings): Dive into your printer settings and choose the “Thick Paper,” “Heavyweight Matte,” or “Fine Art Paper” setting. This action widens the platen gap (the space between the print head and the paper) and prevents the annoying ink smudges that occur when the print head drags across the paper's texture.
- To get crisp, vibrant colors, make sure your print settings are set to the highest quality.
Troubleshooting Guide
| The Problem | The Probable Cause | The Fix |
|
Paper Jamming / Won’t Feed
|
Paper too thick or curled edge. | Try straightening out the edge or set the sheet aside. |
|
Random Ink Smudges
|
The printhead is striking the textured paper. |
Adjust printer settings to “Thick Paper” to widen the internal platen gap. Run a bottom plate cleaning if this happens consistently. |
|
Banding
|
Print head dirty/clogged. | First, try a regular cleaning and run a test print. If it persists, run a deep cleaning. You may need to do that a few times. |
|
Artwork is crooked
|
The paper was not fed straight. |
Make sure you are applying even pressure to the middle of the sheet when feeding. Or hold both sides and gently push into the printer. |
Design Tips for Digital Printing on Handmade Paper
Just because you can print a giant, solid block of color on handmade paper doesn’t mean you should.
- Embrace the Texture: Our cotton & recycled papers have a beautiful texture. Heavy floods of solid color can look uneven and cause “banding”, thin lines running through the image in a different color or no color at all.
- Keep it legible: Because handmade paper is uncoated, the ink might spread ever so slightly. Avoid printing very small, delicate text to ensure everything is perfectly legible and crisp.
- Give the Deckle Room: If you are printing on deckle-edge sheets, don’t design right up to the edge. The deckle is wild and unpredictable—leave a healthy 1/4-inch margin.
We want your digital projects to turn out beautifully. As always, reach out to us with questions or for troubleshooting help.
