I have a bunch of good quality blank standard size playing cards that I want to print on. Unfortunately, my printer will not print something that small. Does anyone know of a common printing store that I could use to print on them?
Where to Print Cards
Tue, 01/13/2015 - 00:39
Wed, 02/25/2015 - 00:17
#1
Working with stock that small
Working with stock that small is tough because most printers aren't set up for it. If you have a store like Alphagraphics in your area, they might be able to do it. Are you looking for lots of the same cards, or do you have many unique cards? The first would allow you to potentially run them on a printing press, while the second pretty much requires you to use some sort of laser printer.
Honestly though you're going to be better off printing multiple cards in one pass rather than a single card at a time.
Thu, 03/05/2015 - 17:08
#2
It's a bit late, since you've
It's a bit late, since you've already bought the blank cards, but I've had good luck with printing on card stock and using a guillotine-style paper cutter to cut them up into cards. It's not hard to get consistent enough quality that they can be shuffled and dealt like real cards, and the ability to go in 15 minutes from images on your computer to cards you can use in a playtest is worth it. Card stock is cheap enough that you don't need to sweat throwing out a batch and re-printing them after making changes.
Mon, 04/13/2015 - 18:59
#3
I would only
use blank playing cards for sketch prototypes, which is what I've done. These are hand drawn but work for play testing. Once I get some more artwork through I will be send some off to get printed. My deck is about 140 cards. We had a guillotine somewhere but not anymore
Mon, 05/25/2015 - 15:15
#4
Card Stock
Do you mind telling me what type of paper you used that gave you a good shuffle. All the types I've tried have seemed a bit "sticky".
Mon, 05/25/2015 - 15:17
#5
Zag24 wrote:It's a bit late,
It's a bit late, since you've already bought the blank cards, but I've had good luck with printing on card stock and using a guillotine-style paper cutter to cut them up into cards. It's not hard to get consistent enough quality that they can be shuffled and dealt like real cards, and the ability to go in 15 minutes from images on your computer to cards you can use in a playtest is worth it. Card stock is cheap enough that you don't need to sweat throwing out a batch and re-printing them after making changes.
Do you mind telling me what type of paper you used that gave you a good shuffle. All the types I've tried have seemed a bit "sticky".
Tue, 05/26/2015 - 15:42
#6
pjr413 wrote:Do you mind
Do you mind telling me what type of paper you used that gave you a good shuffle. All the types I've tried have seemed a bit "sticky".
I'm pretty sure I never said it gave a shuffle I would call good. :-) If I bought playing cards that were that bad, I'd demand a refund. Even being very careful with the guillotine cutter, they aren't good enough to do a clean riffle shuffle. There's no way that they are good enough for publication, or even play-testing with strangers.
On the other hand, when you're talking about an early play test among friends, I think it's good enough. I have actually been able to run a couple of games and get feedback; incorporate the feedback, including changing the layout of the cards and many of the values; print and cut out the new cards; and run the game again to see if people liked the changes -- all in one afternoon.
