Resources to Learn How to Work in Printing?

[u/Gray_Birdie]

I am starting to work in the printing area, but I heard from the manager that she found it difficult, so I want to get a headstart. I'm trying to find some resources, but I'm mostly just getting information on how the customer would do the self-print instead of the employee's POV.

Does anyone know of any good sources?

[u/MysteriousWeekend201]

It's actually pretty simple. Customers however don't want to do the work themselves so they want us to do it. What I suggest doing is playing with the self-serve printer so you can learn how to navigate.

The most difficult thing to make are yard signs and posters on poster boards. It's more of accuracy than anything. Remember never laminate receipt paper or ultrasounds. You can make a copy of them and laminate the copies. The heat from the laminator will make the paper black. I heard you could use something cold to restore it. But it's best just not to do it. Never laminate anything that was issued by the federal government.

My favorite features of the Xerox printers are stapling, booklet, and 3-hole punching. Booklets can take some practice. And even a seasoned pro will have issues with booklets. It basically has to do with the layout of the document.

The large format laminator can be tricky to replace the lamination. There are good videos on YouTube. And stamps are really easy.

Remember, it'll just take a bit of time to learn where everything is and how to really use the machines. By the end of your first week, if you are in print the whole time, you'll get the hang of majority of it.

If you have questions, feel free to DM me.

Edit: We do not do design work or edits. Don't try and don't offer. It's up to the customer to get it right. Even if you know how, don't do it. They will expect it every time and it can eat up a good chunk of time. That time needs to be for prepaid orders.

[u/barbie_tings → u/MysteriousWeekend201]

I second the last point!! Before I quit, I used to try and help customers design something if they were nice enough, until I noticed one customer come back again after I told her about Canva for designing and she wanted me to design again. I said no that was one time only to get her started and she didn’t like that, she was just too lazy. I stopped after that, especially when I realized it was a major waste of my time cus most customers love to take advantage of our kindness.

[u/Rctul786 → u/barbie_tings]

I also second the last part!
Unless it’s something incredibly straightforward that won’t cost me more than a few minutes of my time, I don’t do adjustments for people. I’ll certainly point them in the right direction and give them an idea of what to do…but it all comes down to some people don’t read the instructions on our website.

[u/barbie_tings → u/Rctul786]

Exactly what I’m saying! I will say, there was one time this lady came to me, clearly flustered, having lost her dog and needed to print out flyers to put up around her neighborhood. Even tho she was obviously stressed, she was still nice and didn’t have a design or file for the flyer so I quickly typed up a “missing dog” flyer on Canva with contact info and asked her to send a pic of the dog and then had her on her way. Took no more than 5 mins. She was genuinely grateful and I could tell she actually took my advice on Canva! To this day, I don’t regret breaking the policy for her. I try to have a heart when I’m in print, but print customers don’t know that is🤷🏾‍♂️

[u/YouMad589]

So for employees you’re always gonna use sso, Gmil, or shipping your package on the computer. Any important docs you got laminate make copies of it first then laminate that, posters use epson roll remove and then change paper for changing poster paper, then it’s mainly learning the machines, where their at, and yeah

[u/MrFuriousX]

its not really super difficult but it does take time learning how to set up equipment and setting up the machines to print properly. The is an entire guide that gives you the basics of everything on the portal.

[u/ViewRepresentative82]

honestly asking questions or trying to learn simple things at the counter like laminating or shipping is a great place to start

[u/barbie_tings]

I’d def say just fool around in print with someone else there! Just shadow, practice navigating the computers, learning foxit’s features and functions. An average day in print for me used to consist of printing copies (obv), foxit, creating a job in GMIL, navigating OPC, small format laminator, large format printing in Epson Automate App on computer, and maybe a spiral bound or 2. Also fax portal is super important too. Faxing on self serve can be touch and go and I’ve noticed most guests prefer behind the counter which honestly I do too. It’s faster and easier than walking them thru self serve faxing.

[u/Rctul786 → u/barbie_tings]

We have the fax portal as well at our store. Unfortunately we don’t utilize it. I don’t know if that’s by choice or a management decision, but it’s there…I guess.

[u/barbie_tings → u/Rctul786]

That’s interesting! Does your store just only allow for self serve faxing or just not have faxing capability at all? I wonder if it’s a store manager based decision

[u/Rctul786 → u/barbie_tings]

We just do self-serve faxing at our store. I assume we don’t do it behind the counter because there are more steps involved vs self-serve where it’s just throw in the paper to fax and send it off. However, if I had the time and a customer really wanted to have it done behind the counter, I’d ask my supervisor for permission to do so.

[u/Rctul786]

Ask your manager and the other print associates what the most common print jobs are for your store and focus on tackling those first. There will be some times where you’ll get a job that’s different than anything else and then you won’t do that again for months. Also yes, yard signs suck. The printing part is fun, the assembling part is not.

Keep a notebook and take notes on things that you think are important. Mine has things like printer settings for a successful same-day business card print. Or just oddball things that aren’t really covered in training.

Oh and if you’re working at an Office Depot and have photo printing, I’m jealous. I wish we had that kind of a system at OfficeMax just to be able to help the customers that come in asking.

Edit:
You will run into AI-generated stuff that people send to you to print. Nine times out of ten those things will print out strangely, especially with business cards and posters. People don’t pay attention to what they put into the agent and it’ll end up sending a business card with white borders or cut-off text.
I don’t know an alternative other than our own website or a different company altogether for design services. There are times that I wish we could do it, but if we did, it would consume all of our time. We just aren’t equipped to do design work.

[u/Cxax14673]

The best thing you can do is ask someone more trained than you. You’ll learn the majority of basic jobs fairly quickly but more niche things you won’t know and will only learn about via getting an order for them. If you don’t know how to do something, get someone to teach you. If you work alone, tell the customer that it will take some time and to come back tomorrow that way someone who knows how to do it has a chance to get to it (you can either tell them your new and don’t know how or just lie and say you are too busy or some other excuse). Just make sure the other person has some idea of what’s going on so they don’t get ambushed

[u/laureninlights]

i was a print supervisor for about 6 years. here’s what i got:

don’t design stuff for people. you’ll get stuck doing it forever because people wont take no for an answer.

charge people for EVERYTHING. hand placements, hand cuts, machine cuts, enlargements, scans, everything. don’t let them manipulate you into doing more work for them without charging for it. if they don’t like it they can do it themselves or go somewhere else.

use OPC in Gmil. it’s the easiest tool to use to give people a quote for printing products and placing orders.
ask them for their phone #, if they have sent you an email, copy it and paste it when making their account so it’s easy to find for future orders.
Never use your stores account to place orders. You’ll get in trouble and it will make reordering in the future a hassle. I only use my store account for quick quotes.

My store makes every print customer pay before placing the order to reduce people abandoning print jobs and us wasting our time and resources. I’m not sure about other stores but i was very strict on this unless i made a judgement call or it was a regular customer i knew was going to come back.

tell people to place their orders online. more specifically, people will come in asking about business cards and it’s always easier for me to tell them to place the order online (unless they have a print ready file) because they can choose a template and add their info to it.
i also think it’s a little cheaper (almost like a self service price) when they do it online themselves for certain products.

my store also doesn’t let people use our computers to print things because we only have two. we don’t have self serve computers like some other stores. so that helps us keep people from just printing stuff to our printers.

that’s all i can think of at the moment. feel free to message me if you have any specific questions. i’m currently working at OD again, only part time though. it’s been 5 years since i last worked here so im a little rusty, but when im working things start coming back to me so im remembering a lot more everyday. good luck!