Envelopes - Full Bleed Printing

Does it drive you nuts that most inkjet printers can not print to the edges of an envelope - even the smaller invitation sized envelopes? Paper manufacturers have come up with Print-to-the-Edge Greeting cards (see Products>Envelopes)but not the envelopes! So if you want to print a background on your envelopes, you're stuck with those "unprintable margins". Well, here's a little trick we have found very useful for printing edge to edge (known as a "full bleed") on Print-to-the-Edge envelopes and smaller invitation sized envelopes. It'll work for any envelope smaller than 8 1/2 " wide or 11" high.

Instead of designing your envelope on an envelope template in your graphics software, open a blank page in portrait format. Measure the length and width of the envelope you will be printing and design your envelope on the blank page. Adjust the measurements so that they conform to the size of your envelope and then stretch the entire design (Shift and drag a corner handle) about a quarter inch more. Move the design up to the very top edge of the page and center it horizontally. Now take your envelope and a full sheet of blank paper. Slide the paper under the flap of the envelope and center it along the top (that's the reason for that last 1/4" stretch - to allow for imperfect centering!) Take a small piece of removable transparent tape and tape the point of the flap to the back of the paper. Load the paper with the attached envelope into your printer per the manufacturer's instructions and print away! Most inkjet printers WILL allow you to print to the top edge (or very close to it) and tricking the printer into thinking it is printing on a full sheet of paper will allow your background design to cover the entire envelope. Now your cards and envelopes can match perfectly!