My wife is about to send a brochure mailing to her clients and prospective clients that would be really enhanced if she could stick a personal note on each brochure. So I was thinking that it would be really useful if we could scan a hand-written note and run off Post-It™ notes (the larger type that verges on stationery size) from the printer.

Stick-on forms at the Post Office come with a little sheet of non-stick paper that peels off when you're ready to affix the form, so we could adapt that technology for use here. (In the absence of this, we'll probably use regular paper and set her poor assistant up with a large pile of paperclips.)

(Yeah, I know a "personal" note to 1,600 people is somewhat less than personal, but that is the reality of Christmas lists and marketing.)

st3f: Hm, yeah, you could do that with a can of spray mount.
-- DrCurry, Nov 14 2002

(?) 3M's custom printed Post-It™ service http://www.3m.com/m...ednotesandcubes.pdf
For Rods_Tiger. I had in mind something that could accommodate small runs, instant turn-around and/or mail merge. [DrCurry, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 06 2004]

Removable laser labels http://www.avery.co...657REV&pid=L7657REV
I'm sure Avery or some other stationer make larger versions, but I couldn't be bothered to find them. [Mayfly]

Restickable Glue Stick http://www.cleanswe.../skugroup19826.html [Mayfly, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 06 2004]

Restickable Glue Stick http://www.cleanswe.../skugroup19826.html
[half, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]

Is this a round-about way of selling us tupperware?
-- tyskland, Nov 14 2002


I think this is a great idea. With a fiancée who works in sales, I am constantly attempting to find ways to “personalize” mass mailings. I have one question though. Would you put the sticky part all over the back? I don’t think that would be that practical or attractive, however, the little strip at the top is almost never sticky enough to stay on anything that has been for a ride with the U.S. postal service.
-- Isis, Nov 14 2002


Maybe you can find labels that will substitute? In any case, a nice idea. How about a dedicated printer that applies the adhesive as it prints the Post-Its?
-- phoenix, Nov 14 2002


phoe: That's just what I was thinking. I would approach this from the angle of: "See what process 3M use for their custom prints and scale it down."

If they have found a cunning way of printing on sticky things then mirror that. If not then find a way of putting a strip of tacky glue on sheets of paper in a low volume, home-ish kind of way.

Mmmmm... home-baked post-its.
-- st3f, Nov 14 2002


That is the way to go. There are loads of promo postit freebies where a company logo or something similar is printed at the top. Sometimes they barely leave any room for you to write on. If she needs 1600 it may be worth to cost to print a small custom batch.
-- bungston, Nov 14 2002


I'm with Phoenix. Just use removable labels.

See link...
-- Mayfly, Nov 14 2002


use "blu tak" after you print the labels
-- senatorjam, Nov 14 2002


Typically, it's done to fool the elderly or the very stupid into thinking they're looking at an actual personalized note, but perhaps Mrs. Curry is not so nefarious as that...
-- snarfyguy, Nov 14 2002


Nefarious? She's not a lawyer, is she? Or in real estate? Or accountancy? Or a car mechanic?
-- angel, Nov 15 2002


Although it would involve more work, one possibility would be to print on a continuous strip of paper, cut it into post-it-sized pieces (probably with a guillotine), and apply stickyness with a Pritt "Glue-it" roller or similar locally available equivalent.
-- angel, Nov 15 2002


A4 sheets of little post-it notes are available - I've seen them. You can use the script font based on my handwriting if you like (as used by Mars, McVitie's, Berlitz, Delta Airlines, the BBC, etc.) if you pay the licence fee...
-- hippo, Nov 15 2002


Hey people! Think out of the box. Take one 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper and position the post-it notes you want to produce. Scan it into your word processing program and import your "personal note" and do the positioning. Do a test print cycle until it appears as you want it to on the sheet. Then take all your post-it notes and afix to paper, and print them up. Not such a difficult task--I've done it for a charitable mailing, and 2 volunteeers were able to afix 10000 post-it notes to the sheets inside of four hours. That makes this project less than two hours of afixing. Then you run them through the printer, and since they are on a sheet, it's even easier to afix them to the mailing. If it was a two man team, I'd have one person afixing and printing the post-its, while the other one assembles the mailing.
-- toounfazed, Dec 28 2003


Yeah, but this idea is for those of us who don't have a two-man team with four hours to kill.
-- DrCurry, Jan 02 2004


How is this different then Avery labels?
-- theircompetitor, Jan 02 2004


Much the same way translating close captioning is different from translating an audio track. Post-It notes are not labels.
-- DrCurry, Jan 02 2004


Toounfazed is right. I did the same thing quite a while ago. If the post its are small enough you can do a two or 4 up printing.

Keys to success: Straight paper path. Good blue ink/high rez

I would seriously consider actually writing some of them (prioritize) and even getting a handwriting font made and making a simple database or word file and create a boilerplate personal message and then touch them up as much as possible.

Yes it would be a cool product to have Post-its in sheet form for running through personal printers, I agree. But do know that as soon as this product is available Mrs. Curry and her rivals will no longer want to use it 'cause it will be "so done" by everyone. Thus they will move on sooner or later to the next fake personalization move.

For the current cycle of escalation in the fake personalization war toounfazed has your answer. But I think picking out a batch of them to actually do by hand is a worthy addition to the strategy.
-- DadManWalking, Jan 02 2004


[DC] I like the spray mount idea. Here's what you do. Print them all out, then fan out the stack in a way that 1/2" of the back of each page is showing. Spray the whole stack. Done.
-- Worldgineer, Jan 02 2004


I don't know -- I'm finding personalized post it notes for $23.95 on google. Given what I know of the price of Avery labels, I don't know if the economics are there :)
-- theircompetitor, Jan 02 2004



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