How to Laminate Paper

January 09, 2019

Blog Tips

There are many benefits of laminating documents for your business. From preserving paper for longterm document storage, to projecting a more professional image, learning how to laminate paper at the office pays off in lots of ways. While you can always take any items you want to laminate to a print shop, if you do enough laminating, you can use your own laminating machine and save the effort and cost.

8 Steps to Laminate Paper

Interestingly, that last point, using your own a laminating machine, is the first step in how to laminate your office documents.your

1. Choose a Laminating Machine – You can choose anything from desktop laminators that won’t laminate anything larger than letter-size sheets, or large-format laminators that can handle poster sizes and beyond.
   
   Regardless of the size of machine you choose, there are two basic types of lamination and laminating machines. The first method uses rolls of laminating film to coat one or both sides of a document. The second method ‘encapsulates’ the document in a pouch of plastic. We’ll be looking at the encapsulation method today.

2. Choose Your Document – Many different grades of paper can be laminated, and the size is only limited by your machine. So you can laminate business cards, report covers or advertising materials.

3. Turn On the Machine – This sounds obvious, but most laminating machines need to warm up before you can use them.

4. Put the Document into the Laminating Pouch – The pouch is like a folded piece of paper, except it’s made of laminating film. If your document’s edges come close to the edges of the pouch, you’ll need to be more careful to center it before lamination.

5. Put the Pouch in the Carrier – The closed end of the pouch should fit into the closed end of the carrier. The carrier protects the machine from a build-up of lamination film.

6. Feed the Carrier into the Machine – Use the closed end first and don’t force it.

7. Let the Pouch Cool – Once the pouch comes out of the machine, let it cool before you handle it.

8. Trim the Lamination Film – Trim the edges of the finished lamination to your desired width. Don’t cut the edges closer than 1/16th of an inch.

If you liked this post, check out our recent post on why going green is good for business.