Printing on wafer paper can be a little complicated because of having to maintain the printers, but the settings are fairly straightforward.
The settings for wafer paper printing should usually include A4 as the paper size, matte photo paper as the paper choice, standard or auto print quality, and prevent paper abrasion should be turned on. But this could change depending on the paper size.
If you follow the basics, the printing itself will usually work fine, but you might still get some smudges because of the way the paper absorbs the ink, and how the edible inks stay in the printer.
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What settings to use when printing on wafer paper.
For the paper to print well, it’s best to use a photo setting and to turn on the prevent paper abrasion function. That will lift the printer head slightly farther from the page, so it’s less likely to smear the ink as it goes through the printer.
I set the size at A4 and the paper quality as a matte photo paper for a sheet of wafer paper or wafer card. If your paper is closer to 8.5×11″, though, you might need to use that setting.
After that’s set up, you can click on the Options link at the bottom of the main window, and that will take you to the printer settings.
You can turn on borderless printing here if you don’t want to have a border around the image, and adjust anything that you need to as far as where the paper will feed into the printer and the paper settings.
By clicking on the Maintenance tab at the top of this window, you’ll be able to go into the commands for cleaning and maintaining the printer.
This window gives you the maintenance options for the printer, and it’s also where you turn on the prevent paper abrasion function.
At the bottom right of this window, there’s a button called “custom settings” that you should click to turn on the prevent paper abrasion function.
In this window, you should click on “prevent paper abrasion,” then click “okay.” That will help to keep your paper from smearing as it goes through the printer.
Setting the printer up this way will give you good prints that will have less of a chance of smearing. It can still happen, but it’s better to set it all up this way for the best quality.
For an article about wafer paper grades, click here.
What side of the wafer paper do you print on?
You can print on either side of the wafer paper, but I find that the smooth side gives you the best look when you’re trying to print a photo. The rough side has a slight texture, and although it’s not really obvious, it will make the images look rougher and less like a photo.
It’s really a personal preference, and the texture can actually be good in some situations, like when you’re printing flowers or leaves that have a variable texture in real life.
I prefer to print on the smooth side though, and I think that it looks better when you use the paper for a cake wrap or on cookies.
If you’re getting really picky about which is the “right” and the “wrong” sides, remember that wafer card is basically two pieces of AD grade wafer paper placed back-to-back, and the rough side is considered to be the back for that.
Both sides of wafer card are smooth, so I assume that the smooth side is really considered to be the one to print on!
