Printing letter-size card stock on HP and Epson inkjet printers

First published on June 13, 2011

Even if the salesperson tells you that a printer can print on thick paper, make sure that you check the printer specifications yourself.

Ceremony programs was one of the do-it-yourself elements of our wedding. We designed the programs on the computer, bought some 8.5 x 11 inch 80lb paper, and got ready to print! Unfortunately, our old reliable inkjet decided to stop working. We figured that the next cheapest option would be to take this task to a professional printer, but the stores we went to wouldn’t print on our paper, saying that it would void the warranty on their rented printers.

Off we went to the tech store to buy a new inkjet printer, where we told the salesperson about our requirements. He ensured us that every modern consumer printer would handle the thick paper, and pointed us to his favourite, the Epson Workforce 533. Of course, the moment we got home and hit the print button the printer refused to even run the paper through. Upon looking up the specifications online, we found that no Epson Workforce, Artisan, or Stylus printer was capable of printing anything thicker than 24lb paper.

We returned the next day and ensured that we looked up the specs of other available printers with another salesperson. I can now recommend the HP OfficeJet 6500a E710n-z for printing on card stock. At one point the rollers started slipping on the paper, so I had to manually guide the paper through the printer a few times. However, the print process was fast, the ink usage was minimal, and the quality was good.

If you see supported paper weight being listed as grams per meter squared (g/m²) instead of pounds, the conversion factor is different depending on the paper size and number of sheets. See this page for some conversion charts.

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This entry is filed under Consumerism, Vancouver Wedding and written by Peter Keung. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.