Best paper for printing my own playing cards with my printer at home?

[Bohandas]

What kind of cardstock would you all recommend if I want to print homemade game cards to make them feel as close as possible to real cards?

My printer (HP 8615 Officejet) can handle reasonably thick paper. I've tired This* and it works reasonably well (it's about the right weight and thickness and doesn't bend too easily) but surface is sticky in a way that, in addition to being offputting, I think may interfere with shuffling it and with integrating it into a deck with normal cards. Does anyone have a suggestion for something that may work better?



*Uinkit 260gsm glossy photo paper; https://www.amazon.com/dp/B088K9PXS3/

[Manga Shoggoth]

You should be able to get light card in A4 - the problem is that some things that are marketed as light card aren't particularly stiff.

You can anso get blank playing cards (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blank-Playi...ee2906855&th=1) - printing with non-A4 paper should simply be a matter of moving the paper guide to accomodate the smaller size, and creating a custom page size in your document.

You'll need to experiment with getting the cards to print - I've done things like mount them on a sheet of paper (like labels) and feed that through. Printing them landscape instead of portraut may also work.

Failing that, drop into an art shop and see what stock they have available - if you can cut it to A4 size it will go through the printer provided it is not too stiff.


Also this link may be of help (it's for poker cards, but may have some useful advice): https://aura-print.com/uk/blog/post/diy-poker-cards

[halfeye]

I imagine the main problem will be that the path of the paper through most printers is curved. My printer for one couldn't do it.

[Manga Shoggoth]

Oh yes! The limit is going to be the flexability of the stock against the bending of the paper path. If the printer does a 180 (as my in-law's printer used to) then you have no chance. However for anything up to about 90 degrees, if the rollers can grab the stock you'd be surprised what you can get through - and the cards I have next to the computer bend quite nicely... Hence the possibility of getting A4 stock and trimming it, or just mounting smaller cardstock on an A4 sheet.

Also, most of the printers I've had have had a lever somewhere for printing with card - but I may simply have been lucky with my printers.

[OracleofWuffing]

Oh yes! The limit is going to be the flexability of the stock against the bending of the paper path. If the printer does a 180 (as my in-law's printer used to) then you have no chance.

Looking at HP's website for the Officejet Pro 8615, it duplexes by default. So it probably does a 180.

The sticky surface would either be the glossy photo paper, or your ink. I'm guessing you won't be able to do much about the ink, so the opposite of glossy is matte. The same folks that make the glossy paper you already used have a matte option, but I couldn't find it in the same thickness as what you're already using. If the thickness is really important to your final project, I found this from another seller that's closer to what you are presently using but matte. Naturally, it's best to test a few things before buying in bulk.

What's the end result supposed to look like? I'm a cheapskate, so what came to mind was to just print on "plain" copy or draft paper, cut out the result, and put it into a penny sleeve with a playing card or notecard backing it. Similarly, FedEx/Walgreen's/Wal-Mart, even Google Photos offers printouts of images on photo paper. If you can deal with the result being one-sided, they'd probably be close to a playing card and probably cheaper when you figure in the cost of unicorn blood.

[Ionathus]

I have never found a good method for making playing cards. Apparently Bicycle glues two sheets of paper together for theirs: there's also gotta be some kind of glossy coating they put on it.

The closest I've ever gotten was printing on regular copier paper, and then laminating all the cards with a desktop laminator. But that's also incredible fiddly and hard to standardize.