Sunday, March 17, 2013

What You Might Not Know About Ink

By Keren Kipfer


In some form or another, ink has been around nearly as long as there have been people. There are ancient Chinese scrolls that were written with ink that date back to the 23rd century BC, and archaeologists have found Indian papers with ink that are as old as the 4th century BC in India. Every culture has discovered a way to create inks to write down stories of their history, as well as religious texts and even bills of sale.

These ancient inks were created from various substances, including a variety of plants as well as tar and even burned animal bones. Today's inks come in several different forms, including powder, pastes, liquid and aqueous inks. While liquid and aqueous inks might both seem to be liquid inks, they are different. Aqueous inks contain colorants, binders and other additives and the carrier substance is water, while there are other liquid inks that contain other types of carrier liquids such as alcohol and oil.

While we certainly use ink in pens, nearly all the ink produced on Earth is used for printing and not for writing. The first printing press, of course, was invented by Johannes Gutenberg around 1450, and while this was far more efficient than having scribes hand write books, each page had to be typeset by hand. At any rate, this certainly made it easier and more affordable to print multiple copies of books and also helped spread important written works during the time of the Renaissance. The first high-speed computer printer was created in 1953, and the first copy machine was invented in 1938. While these are fairly new inventions, they were still created decades before people even had computers in their houses.

There are few companies in the world that don't have at least one printer on site, and many types of industries depend upon printing for the manufacturing of their products. This includes everything from companies that publish books or magazines, posters, signs and even clothing. In addition, many companies also use printers that are often called coders to imprint special information such as a batch number, an expiration date or perhaps the serial number. These are special printers that can quickly affix a series of numbers or letters on a variety of surfaces such as glass, metal or plastic.

While ink is a product that just about everyone needs, it is definitely not an inexpensive product. Even simple ink cartridges can be quite costly, but for those who use more complex coders and printers, ink is always a significant monthly expense. To cut their overhead, many manufacturers purchase their inks from specialized product id companies that sell both ink and make-up fluid for many brands of printers, including VideoJet, Domino, Maxima and more.

You also can find a product id source that sells printer replacement parts or that can come out and do repairs if you coder has an issue. If you don't yet have a product id coder but need to purchase one, consider purchasing a refurbished model from a quality product id company as this is sure to save you a good amount of money.




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