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About Vellum Printing
Translucent Vellum is one of the most challenging paper categories that we represent in terms of printability. What makes it challenging is that we can’t say with a concrete or bold statement that these sheets will print to your 100% satisfaction in specific environments. But we have done a lot of internal testing on inkjet and laser printers with varying results. What we’ve found that on specific printers, we get much better results than on some others. Please watch the entire three minute video for our full results and recommendations.
Vellum Papers We Tested
We stock a wide selection of vellum brands, so decided to test a good range of our 8 1/2 x 11 vellum papers. We thought this would be beneficial in getting a true picture of the printability of vellum stock. The vellums we tested are listed below.
- Glama Clear Recycled 17lb
- Glama Pastel Blue 27lb
- Glama Clear 29lb
- Glama Clear Recycled 48lb
- Contact Colors Translucent Blue 30lb
- Contact Colors Translucent White 30lb
Vellum Print Visuals
Below is a side by side comparison of inkjet vs laser print on our Contact Colors Translucent White 30lb Vellum.
| Laser Printing Example | Inkjet Printing Example |
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| Text is sharp and well-saturated, but in certain areas the toner has broken away from the sheet | Text is slightly softer and lighter, but still clear |
Order Vellum Samples & Test in Your Printer
In short, the best advice we can offer our customers is to urge them to test these sheets in their own printers. Our testing yielded too many varied results, but if we are to make a recommendation, it’s probably going to be use inkjet when that printing technology is available. If you are going to be printing with a laser printer, by all means, order some samples and test them in your printer. You’ll know for sure whether the result meets your satisfaction or not.
Both HP laser and my HP photosmart C7180 would either not pull or chewed up the sample 17 and 29 pound sheets you sent to me both got chewed up eventually in the paper passage). Any HP printers you know of that will pull your vellum through? I’m about to give up.
Hi Neil,
Yes, there is an HP inkjet printer we tested that prints beautifully on a variety of the translucent vellum papers we carry:
HP Envy 100 e-All-in-One Inkjet Printer Review – Does it print as great as it looks?
You’ll want to pay particular attention to printing test round 3 where we tested:
Glama Vellum 17 lb bond (64 gsm) – 48 lb bond (181 gsm)
Gmund Contact Colors Vellum 30 lb bond (113 gsm)
I am having problems printing on the smaller sheets of vellum. I have a canon pro 9000. Any recommendations on how to tackle this? I do realize that not every size and sheet will work on every printer. Just want to know if there are additional tips on how to get this done. And if others have had success printing on smaller vellum from a canon pro 9000?
Hi Neri,
Vellum is a tricky paper to print on at any size. As I do not exactly what the problem is, I recommend viewing the following video/article. It provides a lot of great tips for printing custom sized papers and cards:
Tips on Printing Custom Card & Paper Sizes
My other suggestion would be to experiment with various paper types in your print driver – for example, photo paper vs, plain paper vs. fine art paper. Some printers have trouble recognizing vellum and/or printing on it because it is so light weight and translucent, but if you communicate to the print driver that it is printing on a lighter sheet, it might do a better job.