A large number of businesses wishing to print large scale documents such as banners, posters and other materials usually outsource the job to an external print shop. However, rather than spending lots of money hiring someone else to do these print jobs, it can be more cost effective to a company to own a wide format plotter and produce these large scale prints internally. Moreover, if you want to print sensitive documents such as blueprints, it will be more secure if you do the job in-house.

In a similar way to normal printers, wide format printers can do the usual jobs which include printing in colour as well as producing black and white documents. These types of plotters are widely used by businesses involved in construction, engineering and architecture as well as businesses specialising in printing graphic design jobs such as banners, billboards, signs and posters.

There are several factors that need to be considered before buying any wide format plotter. One of these factors is the applications that it will be used for – this will generally depend on the industry you are in. For instance, if you specialise in computer aided designs, then you will need a CAD focused technical plotter that is designed for quick and high volume print jobs and accurate lines. On the other hand, if you are a graphic design company, photographer or retail outlet, then you need plotters that produce high resolution prints with great colour accuracy, which can handle a wide variety of media.

The other factor that must be considered when choosing a printer is the size of the plotter and the documents it will produce.  The majority of wide format plotters can handle documents of width 24 to 60 inches. There are others which can print documents sized 90 inches and above. When deciding on the size of plotter to buy, remember to first check the size of the document you intend to print.

The quality of the print produced by the plotter also plays a huge role in deciding what type of wide format printer to buy. Therefore, when buying a plotter, it is prudent to compare samples of print jobs done by a range of different plotters so that you to know exactly what results you can expect before buying any printer. If possible, print samples using the same type of document and size you will use for your own print jobs as this will create a more representative sample of plotters capabilities.

By Sarah-Jayne Culver; a Search Consultant at http://www.fdcstudio.co.uk/ providing Digital Marketing Services throughout the UK.