Wide-Format Printer Buying Guide

How to pick a wide-format printer

A printer is the biggest buy most sign shops make. This guide walks you through it one step at a time.

Do the steps in order. Each step cuts down your choices. By the end you should have one or two machines left to pick from.

In a hurry? Go straight to our printers or try the printer finder. Want to talk to a real person? Call 903-462-7700.

Step 1: Decide what you are going to make

Start here. What you make tells you what kind of printer to buy. It also tells you what ink to order, what media to stock, and what other gear you need.

Find your work in this table.

Now pick from this short list

Making signs, wraps and banners? Buy an eco-solvent printer. It is the machine most sign shops run. You can get media for it almost anywhere, and the prints last outside for years.

Making shirts? Your choice comes down to the fabric.

• All polyester. Buy sublimation. The ink becomes part of the cloth. You cannot feel the print and it will not crack.
• Cotton, blends or dark shirts. Buy DTF. It prints on nearly anything. You can feel the print a little, and there are more steps to each job.
• Small runs, and the machine will sit idle some weeks. Buy white toner laser. There is no wet ink, so nothing dries up while you wait for work.

Printing straight onto hard board? Buy UV-LED. With any other machine you print vinyl and then stick it to the board. That is a second job on every order.

Step 2: Decide if it needs to cut as well as print

Some printers cut out your shapes right after they print them. These are called printer-cutters. Others only print, and you send the roll to a separate vinyl cutter.

Here is the trade-off.

One machine that prints and cuts. It takes up less room. It costs less than buying two machines. Nothing has to be lined up by hand between printing and cutting. But while it is cutting it cannot print. And if it breaks you lose both jobs at once.

A printer plus a separate cutter. It costs more and takes more floor space. But both machines run at the same time. If one breaks the other keeps working. You can also buy each one the right size for the work.

Here is the rule we give people. If you print less than about 20 hours a week, buy the one machine that does both. If you print more than that, the cutting will slow you down, so buy two machines. And if you already own a vinyl cutter you like, buy a print-only machine and keep the cutter.

Machines that print and cut in one: the MUTOH XpertJet C641SR Pro, the Roland VersaSTUDIO BN2-30, and the Mimaki CJV line: the CJV200-130 at 54 inch, the CJV330-130 at 54 inch, and the CJV330-160 at 64 inch.

Read this before you shop Mimaki. The model names tell you what the machine does. CJV means it prints and cuts. JV means it only prints. So the JV330-130 at 54 inch and the JV330-160 at 64 inch are the same machines with the cutter left off. If you already have a cutter you like, buy the JV. Do not pay for a cutting head you will never turn on.

We also sell packages that pair a printer with a separate cutter, like the PrismJET 54 Gen2 with a 64 inch GCC Jaguar V.

Step 3: Pick a width

Most people buy more width than they need. Look at what each size covers before you decide.

Two things people forget.

Media costs less in common sizes. A 54 inch printer running 54 inch rolls often works out cheaper per job than a 64 inch printer running odd sizes.

A wider printer is not a faster printer. If you are behind on work, buy a faster machine or a second machine. Buying a wider one will not help.

There is one job where width really does decide it: full vehicle wraps. If you have to seam a wrap panel, you can see the seam and it costs you labor on every wrap. If wraps are your business, buy 64 inch.

Step 4: Find out what each print will cost you

You argue over the price of the printer one time. You pay the cost of every print for as long as you own it. Over five years that usually adds up to more than the machine cost.

Ask about all five of these.

• Ink price and cartridge size. Bigger cartridges almost always cost less per drop. Find out what size the machine takes before you compare ink prices. Our own EnduraINK PRO comes in 220 ml and 440 ml cartridges and 1,000 ml bags. Some machines also take a high capacity ink adapter, which changes the math a lot, so ask whether yours does.
• How much ink each print uses. This changes with your software settings more than most people expect. A good setup can use less ink and still look the same.
• Cleaning cycles. The printer cleans itself, and every cleaning spends ink you do not get paid for. Normal maintenance is already inside the 15 percent waste figure below. What is not covered is a machine left standing for weeks, which keeps cleaning itself with no work going out the door.
• Parts you replace on a schedule. Wipers, caps, dampers and the maintenance station wear out. These are not repairs, they are normal upkeep. Ask how often and how much.
• Waste. Media you lose loading the roll, gaps between shapes, and reprints. Good software packs shapes closer together and saves you real money.

A real example: how far a set of ink goes

These are our planning numbers for the Mimaki CJV200 through CJV330 machines. They show you how the math works on any printer.

First, how much ink one square foot uses. "Coverage" means how much of the sheet has ink on it. A sign with big letters and white space is light coverage. A photo or a full wrap is heavy coverage.

The numbers below already include a 15 percent waste allowance. That is ink you pay for and never sell. Some of it stays behind in the cartridge. The rest gets pushed through the lines by normal maintenance, meaning head cleans and nozzle flushes. Both are unavoidable on a working machine, so they belong in your cost per square foot rather than being treated as a surprise.

Now here is why cartridge size matters so much. All three setups below use the same amount of ink per square foot. The only thing that changes is how much printing you get between ink orders. This is normal sign work at 30 percent coverage, and the rolls are 54 inch by 150 foot.

Read the last row again. A machine on 2 liter ink packs prints about nine times as much as the same machine on 220 ml cartridges before you order ink again. That is fewer orders, fewer color changes in the middle of a job, and a lower price per drop.

Two ways to use this table.

• Going the other way. If you print 675 square feet a month, that is one roll. On 8 color 220 ml cartridges you would order ink about every seven or eight months. On 2 liter packs you would order about once every five or six years, which tells you that setup is built for a busier shop than yours.
• Doing wraps instead of signs. Wraps run near 60 percent coverage, so cut those square foot numbers in half. Light lettering work at 20 percent goes about half again further.

Put your own numbers in with the ink usage calculator.

Ask us what the ink costs per square foot on any machine you are looking at. It is a fair question. We would rather answer it before you buy than after.

EnduraINK PRO · all eco-solvent ink · all ink and toner · PrismJET ink and media combos

Step 5: Pick your software

The program that runs a wide-format printer is called a RIP. It turns your artwork into a print. It sets the colors, decides how much ink goes down, fits your jobs onto the roll, tells the cutter where to cut, and holds your jobs in a line so the printer keeps working.

Good software on an average printer beats bad software on a great printer. When the software is weak, you see it as wasted media.

Check these three things before you buy.

1. Is the software included, or does it cost extra?
2. Will it talk to the design program you already use?
3. Are there color profiles for the exact media you plan to run? If there is no profile for your banner stock, you either build one yourself or live with the color you get.

One program, or two?

You can design in one program and print from another. Plenty of shops work that way. The problem is the handoff. Every job crosses from one program to the other, and that is where cut lines, colors and layouts get lost or have to be redone.

One program that does both removes that handoff. If you have one or two people running the shop, that is usually the better way to go.

Our software: Vinyl Express LXi

LXi is our own sign making software. We wrote the help articles for it and we answer the phone about it. The version that runs a wide-format printer is LXi 26 RIP Design.

It designs, prints and cuts in one program. It runs the major wide-format printers and hundreds of vinyl cutters. It works on Windows, including Windows 11.

Here is what it does for you on a printer.

• Design and print in one place. A print and cut job never has to move between two programs.
• Line up your jobs and walk away. Visual Production Manager holds a queue of jobs and feeds them to the printer one after another. It also takes files straight from CorelDRAW, Illustrator and Photoshop, so your designer keeps working the way they already do.
• Fit more onto every roll. It nests your shapes and tiles big jobs. True shape nesting packs shapes tight instead of leaving square gaps around them. Media is your second biggest cost after ink, so this pays you back on every roll.
• Send clean cut lines to your cutter, with marks your cutter can actually find.
• Run more than one machine at once, on separate queues.
• It opens Flexi files. If you have a library of .fs files, you keep it. You do not rebuild your artwork to switch.
• It ships with our printer profiles. Custom ICC profiles built for PrismJET printers, PrismJET ink and PrismJET media, as a matched set.

One thing to get right on the quote. LXi comes in three versions. Expert 26 and Master Plus 26 only cut. They will not run a printer. If you are buying a printer, you need RIP Design. Sort that out before the quote is final, not after the machine shows up.

Every version comes with a 15 day free trial, so you can test it on your own machines first. Download the trial. For the full comparison against Flexi, read the sign making software buying guide.

The part no spec sheet will tell you. When you call us about this software, you get us. Installing it, licensing it, adding fonts, cleaning up traced artwork, running the job queue, cutting contours, nesting. Buy your software from a general reseller and your help comes from somebody else's phone line.

All LXi versions · LXi video training · Flexi · all sign making software · color profiles and driver downloads

Step 6: Buy the rest of the gear at the same time

A printer on its own cannot finish a job. Put these in the same budget.

• A laminator. You need one for anything that goes outside, on a vehicle, or on a floor. Lamination is what keeps the sun and scuffing off the print. See the laminating guide, wide format laminators and EnduraLAM 3.
• A take-up system. But check first, because you may already have one. A take-up rolls the printed media back up as it comes off the machine. On a long job it is the difference between a neat finished roll and a pile of media on the floor. On commercial and production machines the take-up is often built in or included, so ask what is in the box before you add one to the quote. Our Mimaki CJV300 series listings, for example, name an automatic take-up reel as a feature of the machine. Mimaki's own spec sheet for the CJV330 does not mention a take-up at all, as standard or as an option. That is exactly why you should ask instead of guess. On smaller machines you do buy it separately: the dual motor take-up for the PrismJET 54, the take-up reel for the XpertJet C641SR Pro, or the 64 inch dual motor take-up for the XpertJet 1641SR PRO. Tell us your exact model and we will tell you if you need one.
• Media. Have your first few rolls on the shelf before the printer arrives. Read the print media guide, then see PrismJET printable vinyl, PrismJET banner media, all printable vinyl and laminating film. Buying ink and media together usually prices better: see ink and media combos.
• Cleaning supplies and spare wear parts. See printer cleaning and maintenance.
• Space and power. Measure the machine with its stand and media basket, not just the printer body. Leave room behind it for the media roll and room in front for the take-up. Check what power the machine needs against the circuit you plan to use.

The room it goes in

These are commercial machines built for a production shop with heat and air conditioning. The spec sheets say so in plain numbers. Check your space against them before the machine ships, not after it lands.

Here is what Mimaki lists for the CJV330 series. Other brands are close to these numbers.

Mimaki's setup guidance asks for four more things. They are easy to miss when you are picking a spot on the floor.

• No direct sunlight on the machine. Move it, or put a curtain or blind on the window.
• No air blowing straight at it from a vent, a fan or an AC unit.
• A level floor that does not shake.
• Air about as clean as an office. Keep it out of the room where you sand, saw or grind.

Steady is as important as warm. Mimaki asks that the temperature not swing more than 18 °F (10 °C) in an hour.

Why this matters to your prints, not just your warranty

• Cold ink gets thick. Thick ink does not fire cleanly out of the print head. You see it as banding or missing lines.
• Dry air builds static. Static pulls dust onto the media right where the ink is about to land.
• Damp air keeps ink from drying. Then the print smears on the take-up or in the laminator.
• Vinyl changes size with the temperature. If the room swings, your printed sheet is a slightly different size by the time you cut it, and your contour cuts miss the edge.

Two things to do about it. If your shop has a warm end and a cold end, put the printer at the warm end. And if the building cools off overnight in winter, leave the heat on in that room instead of letting it swing every morning.

Step 7: Know the upkeep before you buy

Here is the mistake that kills printers. Inkjet printers do not wear out from heavy use. They break from sitting still. Ink dries inside the print head, the head clogs, and that clog is the most expensive repair on the machine.

So think hard about this if your work comes in waves. What you can do about it depends on what you make.

If you make signs, banners and wraps

There is no low-upkeep substitute. Eco-solvent is the only kind of machine that prints those jobs, so the answer is to run it on a schedule whether you have paid work or not. Put it on the calendar like any other shop chore.

A nozzle check and a short print a few times a week costs you a little ink. A clogged print head costs you a service call and downtime. That is the whole trade.

If your work is shirts and hard-surface transfers

Then you have a second option. A white toner laser machine has no wet ink, so there is nothing to dry out. The UNINET iColor 560 and iColor 650 can sit for weeks and start right up.

Be clear on what these machines are, though. They are transfer printers. They print onto laser transfer paper, and you heat press that onto the garment or the blank. They will not print a banner, a vehicle wrap or an outdoor sign. So a white toner laser replaces an eco-solvent printer only if you were never making those jobs to begin with. If you make both signs and shirts, these are two machines, not a choice between two machines.

Before you buy any inkjet, read what you are signing up for. These are the real jobs, written for the machines we sell: daily and weekly upkeep, finding and clearing clogged nozzles, bringing an idle printer back, and keeping a PrismJET running well. If that looks like more than you will actually do, pick a different kind of machine.

Where to start, by what you make

General sign shop: signs, decals, banners

Eco-solvent, 54 inch. Print-only or print and cut, based on Step 2. Start with the PrismJET 54 Gen 2 ValuPrint package. If money is tight, look at the certified refurbished version. Browse all wide-format printers.

Vehicle wraps

Eco-solvent, 64 inch. Do not go narrower. Get a 64 inch laminator to match. The Mimaki CJV330-160 is the obvious pick. It is 64 inch, it prints and cuts, and it holds more than one roll at a time. Mimaki lists it as taking 45 kg (99.2 lb) on one roll, or 90 kg (198.4 lb) across three. Leaving three kinds of media loaded matters more than it sounds when you switch between wrap film, banner and window perf in one day.

For UV-LED wrap and specialty work, see the Mimaki UCJV330-160. Browse Mimaki and Mutoh, and see our wrap materials and tools.

Small shop or side business with only bench space

Get a desktop machine that prints and cuts. The Roland VersaSTUDIO BN2-30 does both in one small unit.

Shirts: mixed fabrics and dark garments

DTF. See the Prestige R1 and all DTF printers and supplies. You will also need a heat press, film, and ink and powder.

Shirts: polyester and soft signs

Sublimation. See sublimation printers, paper, ink and blanks.

Shirts and hard goods: small runs, and the machine will sit idle

White toner laser. Remember this is a transfer printer, not a sign printer. See the iColor 560, the iColor 650, and laser transfer paper.

Printing on hard board or objects

UV-LED. See Mutoh UV printers.

Ask these eight questions before you sign

Write these down and take them to whoever is selling you the machine. That includes us.

1. What does the ink cost per square foot at the settings I will really use?
2. Which parts wear out, how often, and what do they cost?
3. Is the software included, which version is it, and are there color profiles for my media? If it is LXi, make sure it is RIP Design and not a cut-only version.
4. Is a take-up system in this package, or do I add one?
5. How long is the warranty, and does it cover labor? See our warranty page.
6. Is setup and training included? In person or over the phone?
7. What happens when it breaks? Do I call, do you log in and look, does somebody come out, or do I ship it? See on-site service and repair and our service center.
8. What is the total with stand, take-up, laminator, software, starter ink and starter media? Ask for one number, not six.

Read these next

Three pages cover the things you have to buy alongside the printer.

• Print media guide. How to choose the roll that goes in the machine, and how to match it to your ink.
• Laminating guide. Which film, which finish, and how to size a laminator to your printer.
• Ink usage calculator. Put your own square footage in and see what ink will cost you.
• Sign making software guide. The full comparison of LXi and Flexi, including which version runs a printer.

How to pay for it

Most shops finance a machine at this price instead of paying cash. The printer starts earning the day it is set up. We work with five funding partners, from small monthly payments through full equipment leases. There are programs for new shops and for shops with credit trouble. See equipment financing and leasing.

Two things to do before you order. Check the current rebates and deals. Then ask for a quote so the whole package is priced as one line.

Related pages

• All wide-format printers
• Printer finder tool
• Vinyl cutter buying guide
• Print media guide · laminating guide · ink usage calculator
• Sign making software guide · all LXi versions
• Adhesive vinyl guide · printable vinyl
• Color charts and catalogs
• Drivers, manuals and color profiles
• All equipment

Still not sure? Tell us three things: what you are printing, how much of it, and what you are printing it on. That is enough for us to narrow it down for you. Call 903-462-7700 or contact us. We would rather talk you into the right machine than sell you a bigger one.