hm. my inkjet printer can't print on blank playing cards (too small for the paper tray to pick up and feed through it)

[aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place]

hm. my inkjet printer can't print on blank playing cards (too small for the paper tray to pick up and feed through it).

I figure I'd see if I could find a small cheap printer that can passably print color on that size of paper, but it seems that product listings for printers mostly don't advertise their minimum supported paper size :|

[vilelasagna@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@aeva Mine is an HP Envy 5640 and it has a secondary tray intended for photo paper.

Those are listed as 10x15cm ( 4x6 inches). Maybe this is a type of thing that could work? Or at least be easy to print in pairs or something?

Potential deal breaker: It won't let me change the type of the media on the photo tray to "plain paper"

[meluzzy@woof.tech]

@aeva have you tried sticking the card to a normal size paper so that the printer takes it?

[aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@meluzzy I considered it, but I don't have a good way to do that without jamming the printer

[aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place]

well, this is what I was hoping to do a test print of tonight, but it seems that is not on the cards

[aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place]

my printer might be able to print on index cards, so I'll probably do that instead. it is probably fine if the art is slightly over sized for this project

[aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place]

bah, my crappy all-in-one home office giclée printer can't do borderless printing on index cards

[lritter@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@aeva the trick is to slice off the borders afterwards with a paper guillotine. plus, in a zombie apocalypse you can rip off the blade and use it as a weapon. i seen it done in a movie.

[aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@lritter I'll probably end up doing something like that if I decide not to abandon this project

[pupxel@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@aeva could always print with a black border then cricut it out

[gkrnours@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@aeva another problem that can be solved with a large blade, just like vampire

[rygorous@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@aeva yeah stuff like that is normally printed on sheets _before_ the paper is cut into cards

[seanmiddleditch@hachyderm.io]

@rygorous @aeva Depending on the type of cardstock, no home printer may be able to actually print ink on them, too. Many (most?) blank playing cards sold (that actually feel like playing cards) are only good for hand writing w/ marker.

For custom cards for personal use, it's still best to just print on paper, cut, and sleeve with a spare TCG card (Magic land cards being very popular choices).

I tried *really* hard to find a decent way to make real-ish playing cards at home without excessive manual layering and cutting and gluing, but it's just not possible today.

[aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@seanmiddleditch @rygorous yeah, I think I have these or at least I have something similar to these: https://www.amazon.com/Yuanhe-Blank-Playing-216PCS-Printable/dp/B09L83XFP9 if you scroll down to "reviews with images" you'll find one where someone managed to make it work, but I think whether or not a given printer can make that work is dependent on mechanical specifics that are not typically advertised in product descriptions, and certainly is not the printer I have.

[aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@seanmiddleditch @rygorous but clearly from the product pictures the intention of the seller is you draw on them with markers not print on them

[seanmiddleditch@hachyderm.io]

@aeva @rygorous Ah yeah, I that someone who mentioned they managed to print with an inkjet, but noted the ink took a while to dry. I'm willing to bet that it would still rub off after a little handling, unless they added a sealant of some kind afterward.

You might search for printer by supported paper size (*not* by raw dimensions) that's closer to the size of those cards. You might need to look up the manuals of a printer you're considering. There are absolutely printers that can go down to A5 or even A6 size, but poker cards are a between A7 and A8, which is going to be much harder to find.

[aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@seanmiddleditch @rygorous I decided I'm going abandon using the blank playing cards for this project in favor of printing multiple cards to cut out on photo paper and probably get transparent card sleeves to hold them together and/or glue them to a thicker paper stock. Or if the math works out nicely, print them such that I can cut out the back and front together and just fold-and-glue.