How to Print with White Toner 1

If you’re looking to bring your product labels to life, white designs are a true eye-catcher. They can really make your labels stand out and play an important role in your brand identity. However, it can be tricky to use a printer with white toner, as the lightness of the medium makes it harder for white designs to print clearly. Fortunately, our team at Chicago Color Label has you covered with these tips on how to print with white toner.

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What Printers Can Print White Ink?

To successfully print with white toner, you first need to have the right equipment. So, what printers can print white ink? Your business will need to use a toner-based label printer with CMYK+W printing capabilities.

CMYK+W printers have cartridges that contain inks or toner in cyan, magenta, yellow and black, as well as separate white toner cartridges. When you send a color printing job to the printer, a CMYK+W printer blends the various ink colors to recreate the exact shades of your design on paper. But because white is technically colorless, and no other colors can blend to create it, CMYK+W relies on the separate white toner cartridge for printing white designs. One such white toner printer is the Afinia LT5C, which employs LED technology to print white designs on product labels.

Tips for Printing with White Toner

Now that you know the right type of white toner printer to use, here are a few tips for printing white designs with clarity and definition:

• Match White Toner with a Dark Background: The color of your label background has a significant impact on the visibility of white designs. When possible, pair white designs with darker backgrounds for maximum clarity. Black, charcoal, navy blue, and crimson red are all excellent pairings with white toner.
• Experiment with Effects: You don’t need to make your entire label design white to have it stand out. Consider experimenting with white toner to breathe new life into your existing design. For instance, white outlines make words and images pop out and get noticed.
• Print with the Right Labels: The labels your business uses also have a bearing on the success of white toner printing. Avoid brown-colored, glossy, and metallic labels, as they can produce less distinct images on a printer with white toner.

Using White Toner to Add Life to Your Design

When you print with a White Toner base coat, your results will be very different than when you print without a white toner base coat. Here is why:

• The LT5C printers include a standard PCL driver, but also a PS (postscript) driver for using spot colors defined from design applications such as Adobe Illustrator. This allows for many creative ideas that you can do with label designs and effects.
• You can lay down a base coat of white to make other elements stand out more or provide a completely different look that you wouldn’t be able to achieve without it.
• Adding white toner underneath color is a function of the print driver and is referred to as “Spot Color”. Both the PCL and Postscript drivers have similar spot color capabilities; however, the Postscript driver has an additional spot color setting called “Application Specific”, which gives the designer full control of how white is applied.
• When you apply color toner directly onto colored media, you will see that the media will appear very dull and dark. Using a white toner base will help accentuate the media and help the messaging or image stand out from the background color.

Chicago Color Label is Here for All Your Printing Needs

When you’re looking for a printer with white toner to take your product labels to the next level, Chicago Color Label offers a comprehensive selection. If you have questions about white toner printers or would like to order one for your office, contact us today.