GB2504750A

GB2504750A - Borderless printing

Info

Publication number: GB2504750A
Application number: GB201214215A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Kevin Wallace
Original assignee: ALL PRINT SUPPLIES Ltd
Current assignee: ALL PRINT SUPPLIES Ltd
Priority date: 2012-08-09
Filing date: 2012-08-09
Publication date: 2014-02-12
Also published as: GB201214215D0

Abstract

An assembly of printing material 4 comprises a support sheet layer 8 having an adhesive surface 9, and a print sheet layer (5,6) releasably attached to the adhesive surface of the support sheet layer. The print sheet comprises a single central section 5 and a peripheral section 6, the single central section being separable by being kiss cut from the peripheral section of the print sheet. This construction permits borderless printing by laser printer.

Description

BORDERLESS PRINTING

TECHNICAL FIELD

The invention relates to an assembly of printing material that facilitates borderless printing using a laser printer.

BACKGROUND

It is not currently possible to print edge-to-edge on suitable printing material, such as paper or card, using a laser printer, due to issues of toner overspill at the edges. As illustrated in Figure 1, this results in printing material 1, which has had an image 2 printed on to it by a laser printer, having a blank, unprinted margin or border 3 around the perimeter of the document 1. Typically, this unprinted margin can have a width of anything from 2 to 10 mm. In certain circumstances, such as when creating flyers or leaflets, such a margin may be undesirable. In particular, such documents may look unprofessional when compared with a document having no margin.

In order to overcome this limitation when using a laser printer, a current solution is to print the desired image on a piece of paper and then remove the margins by, for example, trimming the edges with a guillotine. However, such a solution is time consuming, inaccurate and impractical for most office and home environments.

Alternatively, a user can have the document produced professionally, whereby the use of a digital offset printer may be used. However, this is costly to the user. Another solution would be to use a colour edge-to-edge inkjet printer, but these are slow and the ink is comparatively expensive.

Therefore, a more convenient solution is required that enables edge-to-edge, or borderless, printing when using a laser printer.

SUMMARY

It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an assembly of printing material that facilitates borderless printing using a laser printer.

According to a first aspect of the present invention there is provided an assembly of printing material that comprises a support sheet layer having an adhesive surface, and a print sheet layer releasably attached to the adhesive surface of the support sheet layer. The print sheet comprises a single central section and a peripheral section, the single central section being separable from the peripheral section of the print sheet.

The adhesive surface may be provided by an adhesive coating applied to a surface of the support sheet layer. The adhesive coating may be any one of a low tack removable acrylic adhesive and an ultraviolet light curable hot melt adhesive.

A release coating may be provided on a surface of the print sheet layer that is attached to the adhesive surface of the support sheet. The release coating may comprise any one of a silicone layer and a wax layer.

The single central section may be separated from the peripheral section by a kiss cut.

The distance between the kiss cut and a circumference of the assembly may be 5mm.

Any one of the support sheet layer and the print sheet layer may comprise any one of paper and card. Any one of the support sheet layer and the print sheet layer may comprise a synthetic material.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

Some embodiments of the present invention will now be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: Figure 1 illustrates an example of a document printed on conventional printing materials; Figure 2 illustrates a front view of an exemplary embodiment of a printing material according to the present invention.

Figure 3 illustrates an exploded view of an exemplary embodiment of a printing material according to the present invention.

Figure 4 illustrates a front view of an exemplary embodiment of a printing material according to the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

With reference to figures 2, 3 and 4, there is now described an exemplary embodiment of the present invention. The present invention provides an assembly of printing material 4 that is suitable for printing on, the assembly providing that a document having an edge-to-edge effect can be produced using a laser printer. In an exemplary embodiment of the assembly of printing material 4, there is provided a support sheet layer 8, and a print sheet layer comprising a single central section 5 and a peripheral section 6. Figure 3 shows an exploded view of these parts illustrating their arrangement.

The support sheet layer 8 has an adhesive surface 9, which may be provided by an adhesive coating applied to one of its surfaces. The adhesive coating may be comprised of a pressure sensitive adhesive, which may be either a low tack removable acrylic adhesive or an ultraviolet light curable hot melt adhesive, for example. The print sheet layer comprised by the central section 5 and the peripheral section 6 has a print surface suitable of printing on, and a releasable surface.

The central section 5 and the peripheral section 6 are releasably attached to the adhesive surface 9, with the central section 5 being bordered by the peripheral section 6. The central section 5 and the peripheral section 6 are separable from one another.

This may be achieved by creating a kiss cut 7 between the central section 5 and the peripheral section 6. In this regard, a kiss cut 7 would separate the central section 5 from the peripheral section 6, but would not cause any separation of the support sheet layer. The releasable side of the print sheet layer can be coated with a suitable release substance in order to facilitate a releasable contact with the adhesive surface 9 of the support sheet layer 8. For example, a suitable release substance may be silicone, wax, or any other suitable material allowing easy detachment of the print sheet layer from the support sheet layer 8.

In the following example, a user employs the product described herein, to produce a borderless document with a laser printer.

The user loads the assembly of printing material 4 into a laser printer. Typically, the printing material may be of A4 size (210mm x 297mm), and the print layer may have a density of 8Ogsm. The print sheet layer has a kiss cut 7 separating the print layer into a central section 5, and a peripheral section 6. lIthe kiss cut 7 is made 5mm from the edge of the assembly of printing material 4 of A4 size, then the central section 5 will have dimensions 200mm x 287mm.

The laser printer prints an A4 image onto the print layer. As illustrated in figure 4, when the printer shrinks the image to fit the A4 sheet, there will be some toner overspill 11 extending over the kiss cut 7 and onto the peripheral section 6. Once the printer has finished printing the image, the user can simply peel the central section 5 away from the adhesive surface 9 of the support sheet layer 8. The central section 5 is now a professional looking document with no print border, which to the untrained eye, appears to be of A4 size.

While the above example considers an assembly of printing material 4 being of A4 size, the assembly may be of any suitable size for use in a laser printer. The assembly of printing material 4 could be larger than A4, for example, with the kiss cut 7 defining an A4 sized central section 5. Alternatively, the assembly of printing material 4 could be smaller for use in printing photographs. Moreover, the peripheral section can be of any width.

Any part of the assembly of printing material 4 can comprise paper, card, and/or synthetic material, and can be any colour.

Claims

CLAIMS: 1. An assembly of printing material comprising: a support sheet layer having an adhesive surface; and a print sheet layer releasably attached to the adhesive surface of the support sheet layer, wherein the print sheet comprises a single central section that is separable from a peripheral section.
2. The assembly of claim 1, wherein the adhesive surface is provided by an adhesive coating applied to a surface of the support sheet layer.
3. The assembly of claim 1 or claim 2, wherein a release coating is provided on a surface of the print sheet layer that is attached to the adhesive surface of the support sheet.
4. The assembly of claim 3, wherein the release coating comprises any one of a silicone layer and a wax layer.
5. The assembly of any preceding claim, wherein the single central section is separated from the peripheral section by a kiss cut.
6. The assembly of any preceding claim, wherein any one of the support sheet layer and the print sheet layer comprises any one of paper and card.
7. The assembly of any preceding claim, wherein any one of the support sheet layer and the print sheet layer comprises a synthetic material.
8. The assembly of any of claims 2 to 7, wherein the adhesive coating is any one of a low tack removable acrylic adhesive and an ultraviolet light curable hot melt adhesive.
9. The paper assembly of any preceding claim wherein the distance between the kiss cut and a circumference of the assembly is 5mm.