Blue computer print button with title: Tips for Printing Your Family Cookbook at the Print Shop

Tips for Printing Your Family Cookbook at the Print Shop

We often get questions from our lovely Matilda’s Fantastic Cookbook Software users about printing family cookbooks at the neighborhood quick print shop, or one of the national chains, instead of printing it at home.

We’ve gathered a few tips to make the process easier for you.

Get quotes from several print shops

It’s a great idea to get quotes from several print shops around town in order to get the best price-quality ratio for printing your family cookbook.  We suggest a standard format for providing this information to the printer/counter person so that you can ensure you’re comparing like with like.

Use our Request for Quotation form

If you are asking several places to give you a quote, use our Request for Quotation form so that you’re sure you’re giving identical information to each print shop.

You can complete the form on your home computer and print out as many copies as print shops you’ll be visiting. You can easily adapt the basic Word format of the form to your needs. It will save you the agony of having to explain your needs over and over again to different shops and the printer will understand what you want more clearly.

What to take when visiting the print shop

You need to make sure the print shop person knows all the specifications you want your family cookbook to have, so that they do it right the first time. So when you go visiting the copy shops, make sure you have:

  • A home-printed sample of your cookbook. You don’t need a printout of the whole cookbook; just the outside cover pages and a few inside pages will demonstrate nicely. The printer will get an idea of what you want from those samples.
  • Your Request for Quotation form filled out as completely as possible.

Other printing options for your family cookbook

Your copy shop counter person may also suggest additional options for cookbook, so keep track of these on the bottom of the form. Some of these are:

Cover protectors

You can ask to have clear plastic sheets added to the front and back covers. This will make your family cookbooks more durable and less likely to get those inevitable butter (aka grease) stains.

Paper Stock

Instead of glossy white paper, you can choose other paper to print your cookbook. Consider using plain white, cream or ivory, or even Hot Pink if you like. Just remember that these types of papers are more porous than the glossy paper and can stain easily.

Ink Color

Some printers can provide different ink colors to highlight the cookbook. If this is something you would like to do, remember that darker inks print best. Limit your ink choices to black, Navy, brown, or dark green. (Photos never look good in yellow or pink, especially food!)

If you have any other questions about printing your cookbook – at home or at the copy shop – just drop us an email. We’re here to help!

Happy Cookbook Printing!

Erin

About Erin Miller

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Posted in Family Reunions, Our Products, Print Advice, Recipe Binders.

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