Printing a two-sided letter
Warning: Today’s question is pretty obscure and probably only applies to about five people. Usually I post questions from other people, but here’s a question I asked of Bob Weiss. His company is Password Crackers – they’ll crack your computer’s password if you forget it. However, he’s also the smartest guy I know when it comes to technical questions about direct mail. Here’s my question and his answer:
K.W. “A client wants to personalize page one and page two of their letter. They think they can do this in-house. Here’s the catch: they want to do it on one sheet. My point is that, unless they have a printer that does two sides at once, they’re just asking for this to screw up, and it would be better to do it as two sheets and hand match it.”
Bob: “You are correct. There are some very high-end mailing systems out there are actually print both sides in one pass. However, most printers only print one side at a time. Some will print one side, pull the paper back and flip it and re-feed it to print the other side (we have a copier at our school that does this for two sided copies from one-sided originals, but it doesn’t personalize).
Yes, you can run a stack of page ones through and then run them through again to print the second side. You need to pre-test exactly how your specific printer feeds to see if you need to re-collate the sheets to get them facing the correct way (you not only have to align the correct side of each sheet facing the correct way, but also make sure part 2 of record 1 prints on the back of part 1 of record 1 not of record n.
There can also be some issues with the second pass not feeding well. Most printers will heat-up the sheet pretty significantly, which can affect the reliability of the feed.
While the potential for screw-up or misprint is there, if the printer is dependable, you should be able to pull this off. You NEED, however, a way to proof the work and re-start the process. If you proceed, I would make sure that some UNIQUE field from the front of the letter is also reprinted on the back so that you can proof them (for instance in a paragraph on the back include the salutation in a paragraph like “That’s why, Bob, we need your help.”) Also, run them in 100 record chunks so that if one page jams, you can count the sheets and re-start the remaining sheets and reprint the jammed sheet to fix the set. I have done this in the past, so it can work; you just need to be REAL careful.”
Bob Weiss: Password Crackers www.pwcrack.com.
The final answer turned out to be that the nonprofit did have a printer that solved the problem in one pass, but I thought I’d post Bob’s answer in case anyone else has this problem. If you have questions about fundraising or direct mail, please write me, Katherine Wertheim, CFRE, at Katherine@werth-it.com