Laminating / Coating / Foiling - Laminating Pouches

If you work with a lot of paper documents, you know that they are not very durable on their own for almost any application. Eventually, they will start tearing and changing colour- very quickly if they are used more often. If you have documents such as legal letters, tags, or menus that you want to preserve, laminating them is the best protection. Pouch laminators do exactly that using laminating pouches. Laminating pouches are pre-sealed from one end, so you can simply put your paper document in, and run it through the pouch laminator.

Laminating pouches come in various sizes and thicknesses for varied applications. We have compiled a list to make it easy for you to choose the right laminating pouches for your project:

What size do I need? 

The answer to this is very simple, what is the size of the document you are laminating? Are you laminating a business card, a legal letter, or a menu for your restaurant? Now that you have the document size, you will choose a pouch that is 0.25" more than the size of the document. This is done to ensure that your document is sealed properly. 

What thickness should I choose? 

The pouches come in various thicknesses. The thickness is measured in thousands of an inch, referred to as mil. The higher the mil, the thicker and more rigid the lamination. We carry pouches in 3 mil, 5 mil, and 10 mil. Thick pouches like the 10 mil, are very rigid and sturdy. You would use them to laminate things like IDs, Menus etc. 5 mil and under pouches tend to be flexible. So, choosing the thickness would be based on your project- If you want a thick sturdy, and non-flexible lamination, you would go for higher thicknesses. If you want thin, and flexible lamination, then you'd go for lower mil thicknesses. 

What finishes are available?

Appearance is important when you laminate, especially if you’re going to be sharing your work in a meeting or giving the document to your customers or boss. Pouches can have either a matte or glossy appearance so you can choose the one that’s the most suitable for your work. Matte supplies look sophisticated and they can be written on, which makes them great for documents that will be used in meetings. (If you write on them with a dry-erase marker, you’ll be able to re-use the same document again and again. Just wipe it clean.) On the other hand, glossy supplies look flashier and can be easier to obtain. So decide which finish is best for your needs early in the process, especially if you think you’ll need to order your supplies. The last thing you need is to be without the pouches you need when an important deadline is right around the corner.

Round or square corners?

Pouches come in square and rounded corners. Depending on the type of document you want to laminate, you may need to choose one or the other - most times, it won't matter.