What Does Collate Mean In Printing
A reliable printer is an essential piece of equipment for an efficient work or home office. Whether you use it to print weekly business reports or college assignments, its important to choose a printer with the right functions and capabilities for your needs, such as scanning, photocopying, collating or faxing.
Printers are complex devices with many capabilities. From the printheads to the mapping software, a standard printer contains some sophisticated technology. Modern inkjet and laser printer ink machines can produce high-quality prints for text, imagery and photos. They also use a range of settings and functions that allow users to create different types of documents.
One of the more impressive functions a printer is capable of is collating. So, what does collate mean in printing?
Collating, in printing, means gathering and arranging documents in a predetermined order, so they print as a set. Collating allows you to create consistent and well-structured prints and is essential for producing organized documents such as booklets, brochures, catalogs or multiple copies of the same document.
Why Should I Collate Pages Before Printing
Collating when printing is useful when you are printing more than one copy of a document. It makes it easier to keep each copy in a different pile.
It can be really frustrating when you need to print a document 30 times to share to 30 people and the printer just prints 30-page ones, then 30 page twos, 30 page threes, and so on.
Youd realize that after printing, youd have to sort each page together in order for you to hand them out. Collated printing saves you from this stress.
When you are to print a file too large, with lots of pages, collated printing helps you get the job done easier and faster. It gives you page after page while maintaining the original arrangement of the pages in the document.
Collating documents creates consistency when printing. However, if the function is disabled and youd want to print three copies of the document, itd print in this order 111, 222, and 333.
Generally, collating is often enabled by default but it can be adjusted if you want to do so before printing.
Do I Need My Pages Collated When Printing
Most sequential collating is done during printing. Each individual sheet prints off in the predetermined order of collation . Some specialty jobs call for multiple types of paper to be used throughout the document which also requires special collating setup. Most digital presses can alternate multiple stocks of paper within a given print job, but some specialized collating must be done by hand in the bindery/finishing department.
Collated Printing generally refers to multiple originals printed and sequenced in logical numerical order. Each set contains one copy of each original in its defined place in the sequence. More broadly, collated printing refers to any print job that requires pages or paper types to print in a specific order.
Un-collated / Non-collated Printing refers to multiple originals printed and sorted separately, not sequenced. For example, a print run of 500 copies of 3 originals not collated would print all 500 copies of page 1 in a “set,” then all 500 copies of page 2, then all 500 copies of page 3.
Don’t Miss: Hp Scanner Ocr
When To Collate Vs When To Not
Collate copies are mainly used for color copies because the copies can be put together and assembled without being bound together. More expensive printers even give the option of collating print copies as well as hole punching them and/or stapling them.
However, unless you are making some sort of colored manuscripts or catalogs, you will most likely not be printing collated copies.
When You Should Collate Copies And When You Should Not Collate Copies
Color copies are typically collated since they can be put together and constructed without being bonded together.
More costly printers even allow you to collate print copies and hole punch or staple them. You will certainly not be printing collated copies unless you are creating colorful manuscripts or catalogs.
Read Also: Where To Find Wps Pin On Hp Printer 8710
How To Collate When Printing:
Once you are ready to print your document, you can ensure it prints collated by following a few simple steps:
If the document you are printing is only one page in length, it does not matter if you have the collate feature enabled, as it will not affect how your document is printed.
Printing Lingo: What Does Collate Mean
Diagram A – Collated sets of documents
In printing, the term Collate refers to the gathering and arranging of individual sheets or other printed components into a pre-determined sequence. Basically, Collating creates consistent, logical sets from multiple parts.
Diagram A illustrates four sets of documents which have been collated. Diagram B illustrates four sets of documents which have not been collated.
Examples of Collated Documents
A short-run perfect bound book would require its pages to be collated in numerical order before it could be bound. Also, multi-part forms and checks are created from individual sheets collated in a specific sequence.
Diagram B – Uncollated sets of documents
Related article: What is Finishing?
Bear in mind that the individual parts of a print project can be collated without having to be bound or fastened together. For example, promotional packets – like those used for seminars, sales presentations, trade shows and other marketing purposes – are often collated in advance for easy distribution. Likewise, printed instructional handouts may be collated in a particular order but are not necessarily bound or fastened together.
Several Ways to Collate Documents
Collating can occur as the various components are being created on the printing press or it can occur as a separate step after the components have been printed and removed from the press .
Related article: What is Book Binding?
Collating is Often Part of a Fulfillment Program
Take care! Keith
Also Check: Can You Install A Canon Printer Without The Cd
Not All Bound Printing Is Collated
There are some instances in which you may want to have a product bound together but not collated. An example in which you have product bound together but not collated would be Notepads. Notepads are usually in sets of 25, 50 or 100 sheets but each sheet consists of the same printing. The sheets of paper are bound together with a padding compound at the top of the product. The sheets can then be easily ripped away from the pad when needed.
PrintingCenterUSA Specializes in Notepad Printing:
Why Does My Printer Keep Printing Double
A lot of printers can automatically print on both sides of the paper. Printing on both sides of the paper is otherwise known as automatic duplex printing, which is becoming a more standard printer option. If a printer always prints double-sided, users need to disable duplex printing via print settings.
Recommended Reading: Hp Officejet 3830 Says Offline
How Do You Print Configuration Page
There are several ways of printing a configuration page: VIA THE PRINTER FRONT PANEL: Single Line LCD Printers: Press the + key until you see INFORMATION. Press the SET key. Use the + or – keys until you see PRINT SETTINGS. Press the SET key and the print configuration pages are printed.
Whats Printing On My Computer
Printing whats on your computer screen can be useful for a number of different purposes, such as demonstrating the functionality of software or printing from programs that do not have a standard print function. On older computers, pressing the Print Scrn key on the keyboard sent the current contents of the screen directly to the printer.
You May Like: Set Up Wireless Printer Iphone
When You Need Collate Printing
Well, the answer to the question would be most of the time. But to be specific, if your file needs to be read as a single piece, from start to end, collate printing makes the appropriate option.
The instances include printing books, catalogs, manuals, handouts for seminars, presentations, lecture sheets, or reports. Having your file being print-ready as packages eliminates the manual labor of organizing and aids in easy distribution.
Surely, you dont want to spend several hours organizing the annual report you have been working on the whole night that needs to be distributed to 25 people.
So, for consistent orderly printing, choose collate the copy, sit back, relax, or have a coffee while the printer does all the work.
For this reason, most book publishers or printing companies adopt this technique to be time-efficient.
Sometimes you might have to incorporate uncollated printing into your project in combination with collated printing.
These instances include printing books with similar pager inside but different covers outside or creating an assignment set for your students with different front pages.
Booklets or catalogs with one or more page variations inside are not very uncommon either. And in these cases, you have to produce those particular pages un-collated and hand-collate the sheets in the required order.
When Should You Collate Your Prints
You should consider collating a document if you are printing multiple copies. Rather than manually sorting, compiling and binding all sheets, you can take your prints directly from the printer and distribute them.
Collating is particularly useful for teachers, professors and lecturers who regularly distribute printouts for their students. From business meeting preparation to high-school book reports, collated printing has multiple uses.
Although collated printing takes a little more time than uncollated, it is typically a time-saving function when you consider arranging and binding. It also reduces the likelihood of human error because you might accidentally include a duplicate page while organizing multiple-page documents manually.
You May Like: How To Scan A Document On Canon Pixma
When Should Collate Printing Be Used
Collate printing should be used anytime when you need a number of copies of a multi-page document that is meant to be read sequentially. The more pages in the document and the more copies you need, the more time you can save through collated printing.
For example, if you need handouts for several dozen people, collating the copies means you wont have to manually sort the pages after theyve finished printing. Because the sheets of paper will already be grouped in sets with the proper order, collated print jobs can save you a lot of time, hassle, and paper cuts.
Collate printing is hugely useful, and for this reason it typically comes standard in most home and office printers. You have probably used collated printing more often than uncollated printing, because the vast majority of Microsoft Word and PDF documents are meant to print out in collations. Whenever you print a document from your computer, the check box for collated copies is usually already ticked.
Collate printing is also used prior to binding leaflets and books. As long as the document file uses the correct layout, automated collation is time efficient for both perfect bound and saddle stitch binding methods.
How Do I Stop My Printer From Printing Double Sided
Open the Printers window. Right-click on the printer icon, and then select Printing Preferences. Make sure 1-Sided Print is selected from the 2-Sided Printing pull-down menu. Click on the Earth Smart Settings button at the bottom, left of the window. Remove the check mark from the 2-Sided Print check box.
Don’t Miss: How To Clear Your Printer Queue
Saves You From The Mistakes Of Hand Collating
Yes, hand collating is not only tedious and time-consuming but is susceptible to errors also. Messing up with the order while handling a large number of copies of volumetric documents is possible.
So, its better to go for automation. Also, you get to stay relaxed, knowing the printer will sequence your files correctly.
And to avoid any kind of anomaly in the order, book publishers always make sure they are collate printing.
Wrap up
By this time, we hope you have a clear understanding of what does collate meanwhen printing, how you can benefit from it, and when to adopt it.
Nevertheless, to sum up, collating means having your multi-page documents organized and sequence according to the correct order, no matter how many copies you are printing. And uncollated printing, of course, means the reverse.
Why Collate By Hand
There are many cases where collated printing must be done by hand. Here are a few examples:
- Mix of Bleed and No Bleed: A book has several photo pages scattered throughout it that need to print all the way to the edge . The rest are just text with a blank margin. Because bleed trimming must be done after printing, those sheets must then be re-inserted by hand into the book.
- Different Sheet Sizes: Some jobs require a “gradual trim,” where each sheet in the sequence is slightly larger or smaller than the sheet before. These must all be trimmed separately and collated by hand.
We hope this Collating guide has shed some light on the topic. By default most jobs print Collated, so make sure to choose Not Collated if that’s what you need.
DocuCopies WestSan Luis Obispo, CA 93401
DocuCopies Midwest
Read Also: Can I Connect My Iphone To My Printer
How Do You Use Collate In A Sentence
Collate in a Sentence ???? The software program allows people to collate their photographs by dates. Before filing the folders, the clerk will collate them into stacks based on the spelling of the clients last name. Does our boss want us to collate these documents by company name or by order number?.
Printing Riddle: What Does Collate Printing Mean
Heres a challenge to test your printing skills.
Printing riddle:
Whats the difference between printing one collated copy of your document and printing one uncollated copy of your document?
Answer:
None!
If you are printing just one copy of your file, there is no difference between the collated and uncollated printing options.
Read Also: How To Scan On Canon Pixma Mg2520
Collate Mean When Printing With Printer:
While printing a document, collate printing is a technique where pages are printed in the same sequence as they are read. If you have 5 copies of a 100-page long document, then you have two options for printing. You can either choose the collate option or the non-collate option.
In the collate printing, you complete all the pages from 1 to 100 of the first copy before proceeding with the next 4 copies of 100 pages.
In non-collate printing, you print the first page of all 5 copies and then print the second page.
On The Print Screen What Does The Collate Check Box Do
The Collate check box determines the order in which multiple copies of multiple paged documents will print. When the Collate check box is checked, each copy of a document will fully print before the next copy is started . If the Collate check box is not checked, all copies of each page will print before all copies of subsequent pages Note that it does not matter whether or not the box is checked if you are printing a single copy, or if the document is only one page. Documents will not appear collated when printing to PDF, nor in the print preview.
You May Like: Hp Envy Printer Prints Blank Pages
Uncollated Printed Sheets Are Useful At Trade Shows Seminars Sales Sheets Fact Sheets And Many Others
When the printed sheets in the document will be used as required, uncollated stacks of sheets are a better way to go. Here are some examples:
-
Trade Shows: Your digital file has product specifications that belong to 10 different products. These printed sales sheets or product sheets will be handed at a trade show: Because different visitors to your booth might be interested in one of the multiple products that you offer, the visitor will probably want to keep a page or sheet to reference the specific product hes interested in later when hes back at his office. Having stacks of sheets, one stack per product could be more convenient.
-
Handouts: At a conference, a speaker might want to distribute a sheet among assistants at a specific moment, then distribute a second document or sheet later on. The reason for this might be to keep the attention of the audience and to not have the audience go ahead of the pace of the event. Under these circumstances, uncollated documents would be useful.
-
Catalogs: A client might want a full catalog, but if the interest is in a specific product, you could hand just that page to the prospect
Whats The Point Of Collating Pages
If youre printing many copies of a document, collated printing is the way to go. This will make keeping each duplicate in its own pile much easier. When you need to print a document 20 times so that you may share a copy with 20 individuals, for example, its aggravating when the printer piles up 20-page ones, then 20 page twos, and so on.
This would necessitate sorting them all into order before handing them out. This is something that collated printing can help you with. Collated printing will provide you page after page and sheet of paper after piece of paper while respecting the new show of the pages in the document when a file is too large and needs to be printed across numerous pages.
Collating papers provide continuity. For example, if you have a five-page document and wish to print numerous copies, collating allows you to print pages 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 in the correct order, and then repeat if you need more than one copy.
Don’t Miss: What Does The Collate Option In Printing Mean
Should I Print Collated Or Un
This depends entirely on the purpose of your print job. Say you’re printing 500 copies of 6 different single-sided flyers. Rather than having 6 items in your cart, you should combine these into one cart item and print Not Collated to keep your different flyer variations separate. So on the order form, this would say 6 originals, 500 copies, Not Collated. This will help keep your flyers cheap by combining the total quantity for a greater volume discount.
If you’re printing a document which reads as one piece from page 1 til the end, choose Collated Printing. This is the obvious choice for books and booklets, but is also appropriate for multi-sheet copy and flyer jobs or any job where there are multiple pieces that must be grouped together, or where 1 “set” consists of multiple sheets.
Occasionally there are jobs that call for a combination of un-collated and collated printing. For example, you may have a book job that has all the same inside pages collated, but requires 10 different variations of the cover. In this case, hand collating must be calculated too because the covers will be printed separately. This requires a custom quote. Most times, you’ll get this info quickest by placing the order through the website and including any special requests in the Job Notes. You are not automatically charged when checking out.