Printing on the envelope is a service that’s often demanded by business companies to make their envelopes for mailing purposes look more professional and adds class to their sent letters or documents. Focusing on being able to provide the best envelope printing service for your customers is very important to keep gaining an advantage among other similar services and maintain profit for your own business. Below are some basic envelope printing methods that you must understand.

1. Flexographic Printing

Flexographic printing or flexo is a process that transfer ink to paper like a stamp using polymer plates. These plates are attached to rollers which lay down inks on the paper to create an image based on the desired design. The inks are printed in small dots and create the impression of a whole area of a complete tonal image. Flexographic printing is one of the most often used methods in the envelope manufacturing process. It is also frequently used for “transactional” or billing and monthly statements production. Flexographic printing is cheaper to set up and the operational cost is relatively less expensive as well.

2. Enhanced Flexographic Printing

With enhanced flexographic printing, you can print more intricate images with higher quality than basic flexographic printing. The enhanced flexographic printing uses CMYK color processing to create the image. A central impression print cylinder is used to achieve tighter print registration and digital printing plates to produce a finer screen and print resolution on calendarized papers.

3. Lithography Printing

Lithography printing is a type of offset printing process that’s capable of producing a very high quality image, if not the highest. In this process, ink is transferred from one roller to another. Lithography printing is also compatible for printing photographs, halftones, and fine screens.

Envelope Converting Presses

There are two ways of doing this, which is the blank fed and a web fed. The blank web method uses a blank converting press that uses unconverted envelope shaped die-cut paper. This paper is folded and glued during its process. Meanwhile, the web fed method uses a web converting presses that accept continuous rolls of paper. This paper is cut, folded, and glued. Printing can be done in the web fed process but not in the blank fed process. Flexographic printing usually uses web fed method as printing happens during the manufacturing process. While Lithographic printing uses blank fed press method.

4. Specialty print

This advanced method uses the technology of Augmented Reality (AR) and QR codes that you can incorporate in your mailpiece. It allows a combined physical and digital communication. Security tints on the envelop paper can be added for extra security. This can even be ordered custom with your company’s logo. You can also enhance the quality of your custom envelope by giving it a protective coating. Aside from the benefit of securing the quality of the envelope, coating or covering can also add creativity to your envelopes by giving it a better look and finish, enhancing its physical value and impression by the receiver.