NCR printing explained
Recently, we have had a few customers asking us to explain NCR printing more thoroughly. Obviously we deal with NCR printing all the time and know everything there is to know about it. So we thought we would put this all down in a posting for you to read:
NCR paper (carbonless Carbon Sheets) is an alternative to carbon paper, used to make a copy of an original, handwritten (or mechanically typed) document. The process was invented in 1952 by chemists Lowell Schleicher and Barry Green, working for the NCR Corporation, as a biodegradable, stain-free alternative to carbon paper.
Carbonless copy paper works in a simple way. It consists of sheets of paper that are coated with micro-encapsulated dye or ink and/or a reactive clay.
The back of the first sheet is coated with micro-encapsulated dye. The lowermost sheet is coated on the top surface with a clay that quickly reacts with the dye to form a permanent mark. Any intermediate sheets are coated with clay on top and dye on the bottom.
When someone writes on the sheets, the pressure from the point of the writing instrument causes the micro-capsules to break and spill their dye. Since the capsules are so small, the print obtained is very accurate.
Before NCR paper was invented, the only option was to write documents more than once or use messy Carbon paper which was inserted in between the sheet being written on and the required copy below, often ending up with the user having blue fingers. The invention of NCR Paper made duplicating, triplicating and even quadruplicating hand written and printed documents easy and clean.
NCR Paper is commonly used for Invoices, Receipts, Time Sheets, Delivery Notes and other business documents where duplication is required. There are various colours of NCR paper available such as white/yellow/pink/green/blue, in most instances white is the top copy and subsequent colours are beneath dependant on the number of duplicated pages required. For example; If you require 2 copies of a document being written/printed, you would have a white top part and one coloured second part below, this is called 2 Part (or Duplicate). For 3 copies, you would have a white top part and 2 coloured parts below, this is called 3 Part (or Triplicate). For 4 copies, you would have a white top part and 3 coloured parts below, this is called 4 Part (or Quadruplicate).
NCR Paper is usually supplied to the end user collated into Pads/Books which are bound into sets using glue or staples. Loose NCR Sets are also widely used for use in printers.
We hope this information gives you a good grounding into the NCR printing world! If you would like to discuss NCR printing further, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Go to our website if you need any further information regarding bespoke NCR printing
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The Printwise Online team