INTEGRATED APPLICATION
Custom Color Napkin Printing
Full-Color, Full-Bleed: Print vibrant photos, logos, and designs edge-to-edge on standard cocktail and luncheon napkins at 1200 x 1200 DPI.
No Minimums: Print 50 napkins for a small event or 5,000 for a corporate function — same setup, same quality, zero waste.
Durable Ink: Fade-, scratch-, and water-resistant HP pigmented aqueous ink that holds up on napkin stock without bleeding or smearing.
Executive Summary
Custom printed napkins are one of the highest-margin, fastest-turnaround specialty print products you can offer. Every wedding, bar mitzvah, corporate event, restaurant opening, and holiday party needs them — and until now, producing them meant outsourcing to a specialty printer with 2-3 week lead times and high minimums.
The Postmark 1170 RapidColor Napkin Pro changes that equation. It's a complete turnkey system — HP FI-1000 printhead, dedicated napkin feeder, delivery tray, workbench, and computer with Xitron Navigator RIP software — that lets you print full-color custom napkins on demand, in-house, with no plates and no minimum order quantities. A customer walks in Monday with a photo of their daughter for a bat mitzvah on Saturday, and you hand them a box of custom napkins the same day.
For print shops, mail houses, and promotional products companies, napkin printing opens a new revenue stream with almost zero competition from your existing customer base. Your mailing clients already trust you with their print — now you can offer them event products too.
Key Advantages
Same-Day Turnaround: No plates, no film, no outsourcing. Upload the design, load the napkins, and print. A typical run of 200 custom napkins takes under 30 minutes from file to finished product.
Highest-Margin Add-On: Custom printed napkins retail at $0.50-$2.00 per napkin depending on quantity and design complexity. Your ink and napkin stock cost is a fraction of that. The margin on napkin printing far exceeds standard mailing work.
Zero Waste Production: Print exactly the quantity ordered — no overruns, no leftover inventory, no plate storage. Every napkin printed is a napkin sold.
Variable Data Capable: Print unique designs, names, table numbers, or personalized messages on every single napkin in a run using multipage PDF workflows through Xitron Navigator.
Expand Your Service Offering: Your mailing and print customers already come to you for direct mail. Now offer them event printing — wedding napkins, corporate event branding, restaurant menus on napkins, promotional giveaways.
Simple Hand-Fed Operation: No complex inline integration required. An operator hand-feeds napkins through the dedicated napkin feeder and collects finished pieces from the delivery tray. One person, one machine, full production.
How It Works
DESIGN: Upload artwork — a photo, logo, or full-bleed design — and process it through Xitron Navigator RIP software, including variable data for personalized runs.
PRINT: An operator hand-feeds napkins through the dedicated feeder while the HP FI-1000 printhead lays down full-color CMYK at 1200 × 1200 DPI, edge to edge.
COLLECT: Finished napkins drop to the delivery tray — a typical 200-piece run takes under 30 minutes from file to finished product, with no plates and zero waste.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you print on napkins?
Napkin stock is soft and absorbent, so it needs a press built to feed and print it — a napkin printing system prints full color directly on cocktail and luncheon napkins on demand. Desktop printers jam on napkin stock; purpose-built machines run it by the thousand.
Can a print shop offer custom napkins profitably?
Yes — ink cost per napkin is pennies, blank stock is cheap, and custom napkins sell at premium per-piece prices for events and restaurants. It’s one of the highest-margin add-on products a quick printer can run, and it comes straight off existing customer relationships.
