Staples Brochure Printing Review

if you're thinking of printing brochures at Staples, think again! They are not ready for the professional printing required to create proper looking brochures, and their paper is not nearly the quality you are looking for. Not to mention that their prices are insane, especially for color on both sides.

Let's talk about price first. On a normal piece of printing paper, a duplexed (double sided) color copy is about $0.98. That's on normal paper remember. When printing on a glossy thin paper they have (known as elite gloss) that is thin like magazine paper, it's about $1.19 per side! That's over $2 for each brochure, and you still need them folded.

Most professional printers offer you sturdier paper, better folds, and great color quality, while being about $0.50 a brochure or less, depending on quantity. So in price alone you should keep away from Staples, but there is more.

As I said before their paper is not good enough. The elite gloss does not take well to colors, and sometimes can smear or bump from the saturation of color printing. Not to mention that when folded, the paper cracks and you can easily see the "quality" of the paper at that point.

Now the printing itself. While Staples does use rather powerful (though usually low end on the commercial spectrum) Xerox printers, there is a problem with their printing method. If you look at any good brochure, you will notice the printing goes all the way to the edge of the paper, this is known as a bleed (or full bleed).

When your brochure is printed, it will look like you printed it from your home printer, with white lines around the edges. How can you alleviate this problem? They can cut the sides off, but it will cost about and extra $8 for every 150-200 sheets, so this can add up after awhile. Not to mention the paper cutter they use tends to shift papers, so the cut will not be exactly straight.

So if you are really thinking about printing some brochures at Staples, it's probably better if you check out some other printers first with better capabilities and lower prices. If you need a small amount of brochures more to show your product or event without needing heavy quality, Staples will do you just fine. But if you are looking for graphic intensive, very colorful, and extremely professional looking brochures, then run away from Staples as fast as you can.