Ask HN: How can I print 1 business/membership card at a time? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How can I print 1 business/membership card at a time?

3 pointstomcam11 comments

Working on membership software that scans QR codes on phone or card. Ideally I would be able to offer a printer that prints 1 membership card at a time, with custom QR code, name, membership level, and company logo.

Those cool Avery perforated sheets are just too cumbersome to work with in a production environment; trying to do a one-off is slow and error prone.

What I'm looking for is something that can essentially print 1 business card at a time, sort of like a label printer. Can anyone point me to such a printer?

View on HN

Hi! I've worked on software that printed nametags for conferences as one-offs, and would dispute that perforated sheets "are just too cumbersome to work with in a production environment" if you haven't actually used them. If you're just imagining that it would be cumbersome, I would recommend you try it out, not just once, but hundreds of times in a row, video taping yourself and timing each part of the process.

If you only printed on one card on a perforated sheet, it would still be worth the cost (250 cards in a package, 10 per sheet, 25 sheets per package, $12.50 package cost, so fifty cents per card to throw the other nine away) to use stock sheets and stock inkjet/laser printers. You can afford fifty cents as part of your per-user acquisition cost.

The suggestion by steanne to use plain card stock with a business card cutter is also a good one.

But, if you still want a dedicated device, you should decide if you want a paper-ish card, or a plastic one, like a credit card.

I would recommend getting a thermal receipt printer[1], which will let you print directly onto a small slip of paper, and then using a self-sealing laminating pouch[2] (not a thermal/heat-sealing laminating pouch). You print a slip of paper, slide it into the plastic pouch, it sticks together and there's your card.

For plastic cards, ID card printing machines are well-established for company ID cards[3].

[1]: Like this, but not DIY, they make normal USB and serial ones, too: http://www.instructables.com/id/Simple-and-Impressive-Busine...

[2]: Obviously a heat-sealing pouch would turn your thermal label black, rendering it useless: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Scotch-Self-Sealing-Laminating-Pou...

[3]: https://www.google.com/webhp?q=id+card+printer&tbm=shop#q=id...

I'm a complete idiot. You're right--it's well worth printing a single card at position 1 (or 0 ;-) and throwing away the rest of the sheet. Doh!

Also, thank you for giving me the search term "id card printer". I didn't even come close with my fumbling attempts at things like "print business cards 1 at a time" and so forth.

If you're willing to throw out the remainder of the sheet, and worker time/skill is a concern, you could also print the same card multiple times in multiple positions, to guard against accidentally ruining a card, at the expense of additional ink.

If your printer was capable of handling the sheet, you could in theory print one card (in position 0), and then at some future point flip the stack of card sheets over and print a new one in the opposite corner (just rotate the sheet so "position 0" is a card and the cutout is position "max"). Cheap. :)

You can purchase 8.5x11 sheets with integrated cards. The cards can be plain paper, laminated or plastic. They can be printed using standard ink jet or laser printers. Usually the card is at the bottom center of the page leaving the rest of the page to print a welcome message etc.

A Google search brought up http://www.blanksusa.com/products/integrated-cards

I also did not know about integrated cards, aka integrated forms. These are almost certainly my best bet on further consideration. Thank you.

I would contact the folks at lob.com and see what they can do. They do one off postcards via API. They don't offer membership cards right now, but might have some ideas of who does.