Help and Advice
Choosing the right CAD plotter paper for your Inkjet Plotter
There are many varieties of inkjet paper on the market for today`s plotters. Most plotter papers are universal and suitable for HP designjet, Canon IPF, Oce CS, Epson and Xerox machines. When choosing it is important to consider, paper quality to suit your application, weight, roll length and width, we hope this guide will help uncover this very confusing range of large format papers.
Paper Weights/Media types.
60gsm – Semi-transparent uncoated paper suitable for check plots, originally produced to take dyeline copies. Good for mono and line colour plots and where cost reductions of posting is important.
80gsm – Opaque uncoated paper suitable for mono and line colour. Low cost paper which is used by construction and production markets.
90gsm – Opaque uncoated paper suitable for mono and line colour. The market standard paper, used by all types of businesses, durable and available in all sizes for most machines on the market.
90gsm/100gsm/120gsm Opaque Coated paper, A smooth media, with good colour gamut and brighter colour prints. Used by GIS departments,Graphic designers and architects producing presentations.
Roll Lengths
Older machines like the HP Designjet 200, 400, 600, 700 series will take upto 50 meter rolls for 80/90gsm uncoated paper. 90 meter rolls are available for plotters such as the HP 1050 & HP1055 series, HP4000, HP4500 and the later models T1100, Z series and also Canon IPF and Oce CS range. Longer rolls are available for some Canon and Oce machines upto 120 meters but its always best to check. The best value for money are the longer rolls, so always better to choose if your machine will take them.
Roll Widths
A1 Rolls – Standard width is 24″ 610mm This is bigger than standard DIN A1 size but cover across thje world markets. Available but not in every weight is 594mm width for exact A1 plotting thus no need to trim prints.
A0 Rolls – Over sized roll as standard is 36″ 914mm which allows for margins. A more popular size is the 841mm width which will enable printing to A0 DIN size with no trimming.
Core Sizes
The standard core size for CAD inkjet plotters is 2″ 50mm but there are some few exceptions, newer machines will provide 3” adapters and some graphic printers will take 3″ 75mm media. If you are unsure its always best to check.
