5 ways to use the ZX-40 Ultra Ribbon Printer!

Using the ZX-40 Ultra Ribbon Printer is easy, and it offers many different creative ways to print onto satin ribbons (or die cut labels… or wash care labels… and even vinyl!)

(Image: ZX-40 Ultra Ribbon Printer, with printed Valentine's Ribbon) You might want to incorporate some of these printing techniques into your own ribbon printing business… Let's get started! 5. Printing with Two Colours (Two-Colour Printing)

The ZX-40 Ultra Ribbon Printer is primarily a mono printer, and this means that it can only print a single colour at any time.

We understand that people may wish to have two or more colours on their ribbons, and so we have found a way to do so!

You would first print one part of the design with your first coloured foil, then wind the ribbon back to the beginning of your design. Then you can insert the second foil and print the other part of your design.

We even have a full tutorial video on our Youtube Channel, linked here:

We encourage you to watch the video above, as this will give you a full guide on how to print with two colours.

We do suggest that this is to be considered an advanced technique and would require careful placement of your materials. It is also easiest if the colours are not too close together, as that will allow a small margin of error.

We would also like to mention that this may add some additional time on top of your current printing experience. 4. Printing onto Multiple Ribbons at Once (Multi-Print Attachments)

Printing onto multiple ribbons at once not only saves you time, but also money too! We never recommend rewinding the foil, as once the foil is spooled onto the waste tube it is not held as taught and might crease… or even go over a used area of foil on a 2nd print attempt. This can reduce the quality of your prints, create gaps in your work and is NOT advisable.

Instead, to help with making best use of the foil, we have produced multi-print attachments, which allow you to print more than one ribbon simultaneously - increasing productivity and reducing printing costs!

We have some stock multi-print attachments, but can custom make them based on your ribbon width too. We can offer a quote on a custom attachment, if you let us know the sizes you require!

 (Image: Multi-print attachments)

 3. Printing your own images, logos and designs

When using your own imagery, this will need to be monochrome and of a somewhat high quality. If the image is pixelated for example, this may print the pixelation which might not show a clear print.

Additionally, if you use a colour image, this would be converted to a greyscale image during the print process and might lose quality due to that change.

Your images and text will need to be black and white for the best results.

For a quick example:

2. Printing with Vertical Text/Images (Vertical Printing)

We know that in some cases, you need your text to be vertical when printing certain ribbons. You might want to print this way when printing rosettes, florist ribbons, brand packaging ribbons… etc.

You can have your text AND images printed vertically on your ribbon!

We have a tutorial video over on our Youtube Channel that explains this process in more detail, linked here:

  1. Printing in Different Languages

As long as you have the languages installed on your PC, you can print in any language you need!

However, if you do not have the languages that you need installed, then you can also copy and paste your desired words/phrases into the design software.

For example, we translated the below phrase (Happy Birthday!) into Spanish via Google Translate. Then we copied the Spanish translation and pasted it into a text box.

This copy and paste method will take slightly longer than having the language installed, and it would be up to you (the user) how you would like to create your designs! That concludes our 5 ways to print ribbons with the ZX-40 Ultra Ribbon Printer - and there are still many more ways that you can use your machine! Our friendly team are always available to have a chat about what you are looking to achieve, and hope that the above points will be helpful to you!

You can contact us via email at cplsales@print1.co.uk for advice at anytime. Or you call us on 01708 731294, or chat with us via Whatsapp on +44 7542 592589.