Printing Funeral Programs at a Print/Copy Shop

When it comes time to print funeral programs, you have several options. You can either print your funeral programs on your home printer, email, upload or deliver the originals to a print shop and pay them to do the printing, or you can choose to print them yourself on a self-service copier. Here are the basics.

Locating a Copy Shop

Depending on where you live, you may have several options for printing memorial or funeral bulletins. Even if there are no retail ship & print or office supply centers in your area, you should still be able to use a commercial print shop that serves local businesses. Here are four common retail locations where obituary printing can be done.

• Fedex/Kinkos ship & print centers normally have self-service machines that customers can use to run copies (see more about that below). They can also print your custom funeral programs to your specifications.  Most Fedex/Kinkos locations allow uploading of document originals through their website, then completing your print specifications and submitting the order for pick-up at your designated store.
• Staples copy & print centers include self-service copiers and printers within their office supply stores. You can copy from USB drive, the cloud or printed documents. Staples also has full-service copy shops that can complete your funeral and memorial program print jobs for you, and their website allows easy ordering of print services.
• Some UPS shipping centers also offer this type of full-service printing. UPSStore.com gives instructions for uploading your documents to be printed and then selecting the UPS print shop location nearest you to complete the job.

Another funeral program printing option available in many areas is through Office Depot/Office Max. These two office supply chains have merged, but they’ve retained their printing capabilities. As with the other two options, you can set up an online account, upload your funeral programs and specify how you want them printed for pick-up.

Self-Service Printing Option

Most Fedex/Kinko’s and Staples locations offer the option of copying your funeral programs on self-service printer/copiers. The self-service copiers usually include a USB port to upload original documents directly to the copier from a flash drive.

There’s also a special email address available on their websites where you can send an attached document to be retrieved at the printer/copier. One more option for getting your originals to the copy shop for self-service printing is to access them from the printer via the cloud.

Whether you bring in printed originals to copy or upload them from a flash drive, email attachment or the cloud, you’ll need to then specify number of copies, size of paper and printing services like collating and stapling.

These copy shops usually stock different colors and weights of paper that you can purchase by the piece for your print job. You could also purchase a quantity of the paper you need ahead of time. This is a good option if you’re likely to use it again for customers’ funeral program orders.

Printing Specifications

No matter where you choose for printing obituaries or your customized funeral or memorial programs, you’ll have to make some decisions to produce the mementos you want. As you were designing the document with the help of your downloadable funeral program template, you chose the format—single sheet flyer, bi-fold (single fold), tri-fold, gate-fold or graduated fold, multiple page format or large booklet format. That’s important to know as you’re working with the print shop (or copying the funeral programs yourself).

Will you print in full color, single color (one additional color besides black and white) or only in black & white? Another decision to make is the weight and color of paper you desire. If you’re not familiar with the different weights of paper, you may need to visit the print shop for your first order. If you’re ordering your document printing online, there should be a chart of colors available in each weight.

One last choice to make is whether to have the print shop fold the funeral bulletins once they’re printed. It’s less expensive to fold them yourself, but you may want the crisp look of machine folding.

Price Comparison

You’ll need to know what local copy shops charge for printing services so that you can build that cost into your funeral program pricing. You can usually expect to pay more for having your funeral programs printed by copy shop staff than if you print them yourself on-site (but watch for coupons or member discounts.)

Here’s an example of the difference between having a print job completed by the print shop or running copies yourself on a self-service machine:

Funeral Program: Tri-fold, full-color on ivory, 32-lb paper – 100 copies for $134.25 printed by Fedex/Kinko’s ship & print center. Average cost to print full-color copies on self-service copiers at Staples and Fedex is .59 each. One hundred copies x .59 = $59.00, plus $2.40 for 100 sheets of ivory paper from Staples = $61.40, but you will also need to factor in your time to tri-fold 100 copies.

Printing funeral programs or bulletins by using downloadable templates and the services of a local copy shop can be a good alternative to using your own printer and ink. Save more money by buying paper in several colors and weights on sale if you’re running a funeral program business. Take advantage of local print or copy shops to produce funeral and memorial programs with a professional touch.