What is special about printing on envelopes?

Envelopes are finished products made of four layers of paper. With conventional printing methods, such as offset printing, you run the risk of embossing the side flaps of the envelope during the printing process. If that happened, side folds and seal flaps would show through. Printing with a dedicated envelope printer avoids this effect. Alternatively, it is also possible to print on sheets of paper and subsequently convert them into envelopes.

We differentiate between envelopes with and without full-bleed printing. What does this mean?

If envelopes are printed with motifs all the way to the margins, this is called “full bleed”. On an envelope printer, full-bleed printing of all pages  is possible in two colours. This method does not work on sheet-fed offset printers because they need a gripper margin to grip the envelopes. This method is called printing ‘without full bleed’.

What is possible and what cannot be done?

When using a standard printer or a four-colour envelope printer, it is important to observe the gripper margin, e.g. the necessary distance to the margin of the envelopes required by the machine. This distance is around five to seven millimetres.

At present, not all digital printing methods are suitable for printing on envelopes. The HP Indigo technology can currently only print formats from size A4.

If you wish to apply a special finish or print a full-bleed envelope with special colours, you need to print on a sheet of paper first and then convert it into an envelope.

How many print runs are advisable? Which formats and grammages are required for successful printing?

A general rule applies: Higher print runs lead to lower unit costs. This is particularly apparent in offset printing. In digital printing, a print run of up to 1,500 provides the best value for money.

Sheet-feed offset presses can print on envelopes in the formats C6 to C4, while envelope printers work with the formats C7 to B4. For digital printing, the format depends on the printer.

Off-the shelf envelopes with a grammage between 70 g/m² and 150 g/m² can be printed subsequently. And by the way – Metapaper envelopes are made of 120 g/m² paper.

Is it possible to change the finish of the envelopes after printing?

Finishing the surface of off-the-shelf envelopes is only possible to a limited extent, for example by using hot foil. Often, it is more practical to finish the printed sheets first and convert them into envelopes afterwards.

For this purpose, please do not forget the following: Always check the exact finishing position with your printing partner in advance to avoid unpleasant surprises at the end.

What are the necessary considerations for envelopes with window?

You cannot print on envelope windows since they are mainly made of polyethylene (PE). Moreover, envelopes are not suitable for digital printing, because they are not heat-resistant. If you print on envelopes with a window, please keep a distance of approximately 2mm from the window to avoid applying any pressure.

For envelope formats up to C5, the dimensions of the window in Germany are always 45 x 90mm and for the format C4, the dimensions are 55 x 90mm.

Metapaper envelopes are available with and without window.

What are the important factors for printing on the inside of envelopes?

Envelopes with low grammages are printed on their inside in order to increase opacity. Grey, brown or blue are the preferred colours for this purpose.

If the envelopes are made of sheets, you can print on both sides, which also makes it possible to customize what is printed on the inside. This is quite a popular design feature. The inside of SMOOTH envelopes is printed in grey-brown, whereas EXTRAROUGH envelopes are not printed on the inside.

By the way: We do not print any logos of paper manufacturers on our envelopes. After all, communicating your own brand is key.

What is the future of printing on envelopes?

Due to an increase in online billing, the standard 80 g/m² envelope to send invoices is less and less significant. At the same time there is a higher demand for small print runs of individually designed envelopes. From a print run of 2,000, these envelopes can be produced with all Metapaper paper up to a grammage of 175 g/m² . Just contact our experts.