Tiny, tiny print on packaging. Can someone who does this explain?
-
Not quite the explanation here, but what I know ... We have auto bagging machines here at the building I work in. The bags are printed with all the art work in a generic format, and come on a roll of 5000. When we designed the bag artwork, we left ourselves a 2" by 4" space to print the product name, specs, UPC Barcode, customer logo, etc. As time passed, we had to print more legal stuff in the print area, and the printing got smaller for some text, and increased the size of the barcode, so it scans on every barcode scanner you can imagine. So these auto baggers, feed a bag into the plenum, blow air into the bag to open it, and dump product into it by weight, and seal the bag, then tear and dump into a bin. We can't make the print area larger, because were limited by the heat thermal transfer head size that prints the information. We can't buy a larger one, because the ones we have match the entire system, where we use RS232 to download the data to the thermal heat thermal transfer print head. To print larger, we would have to buy all brand new equipment, which is not cost effective. I know with major bread brands, they can afford to have a custom bag printed for each bread type, because they only offer White and Wheat. They just auto bag, and print the factory number, batch number, UPC Barcode, and expiration date in a specified area. I first saw tiny print 30 years ago coming from Asia, with products such as Sony, Toshiba, etc, because they tried to print in 5 different languages on the same sheet of paper designed for a single market place. But now they can consolidate that one product, and ship it to many market places, such as the US, Canada, Mexico, Europe. Hope that helps ...
If it ain't broke don't fix it Discover my world at jkirkerx.com
-
When I was young I didn't understand why my Dad couldn't read stuff I had no trouble with. I knew old people's eyesight was poorer, but not my Dad, surely? Now, many decades later, I get it! It is easy for businesses to set standards for their packaging. That they obviously don't, or don't bother to enforce them, suggests that they just don't care. Well now, there's a surprise!
That's may be part of the problem but I always carry a pair of cheaters with me to correct for that particular issue. The problem is that some of the companies just do stupid stuff. Years ago, I purchased a new HSF for my computer and the instructions for installation came on a piece of paper approximately 2x3 inches. Turns out they'd shrunk the 8.5x11 inch original instruction page to fit in the packaging (assumption here). I had to go to their website to get the full page instructions which were readable.
-
Is there anyone here who works on systems that print food labels. The specific ones I'm thinking about are small sachets of soy sauce, or the labels printed for in-store, freshly baked bread. The labels that are 90% whitespace with 2pt high text that you almost need a microscope to read. The trend of unreadably-tiny-font-on-an-area-that-could-accomodate-a-billboard seems to have been increasing in the past few years and I would love an actual reason for it. My guesses 1. They don't actually want you to read the labels. They package the raisin bread with the whole grain bread in the same exact package, label, tie, everything, with the only difference being the teeny tiny words that allow you distinguish, in the mood lighting of the bread department, what it actually is. It makes shifting unwanted inventory easier
2. They have software that can't scale a font to make it fit the space, and also have to cater to labels that are potentially 1024 characters long, so they take space / # chars = microscopic font. Problem solved!
3. Someone in accounting worked out that based on font size, total chars printed, total number of labels, and the cost of ink, they would save $5.47 each year if they printed in 2pt font size.
4. No one involved from label design to product creation to printing to stocking has ever actually tried purchasing a product printed like this in an actual store. To save time and money they did zero usability testing
5. They are simply evil. Can anyone shed some light here?cheers Chris Maunder
-
Do you mind if I ask Why does Firefox not like your link "View My Work" I am not being critical just trying to understand what Firefox is doing
Don't know yet. I just renewed my SSL certificate, and maybe I got it wrong. I tested it from home, and I didn't get any warnings, so I'm not sure yet. On Firefox IOS, says connection secure. Kind of stupid that I buy a 5 year certificate, and I have to regenerate it every year for 5 years, on like June 11. I went to generate it this year, and forgot how to do it, and messed up, and had to do it again, so maybe that's it.
If it ain't broke don't fix it Discover my world at jkirkerx.com
-
Don't know yet. I just renewed my SSL certificate, and maybe I got it wrong. I tested it from home, and I didn't get any warnings, so I'm not sure yet. On Firefox IOS, says connection secure. Kind of stupid that I buy a 5 year certificate, and I have to regenerate it every year for 5 years, on like June 11. I went to generate it this year, and forgot how to do it, and messed up, and had to do it again, so maybe that's it.
If it ain't broke don't fix it Discover my world at jkirkerx.com
Here is what I see FYI Thanks for the reply Hmm. We’re having trouble finding that site. We can’t connect to the server at codename-indigo.com. If you entered the right address, you can: Try again later Check your network connection Check that Firefox has permission to access the web (you might be connected but behind a firewall)
-
Is there anyone here who works on systems that print food labels. The specific ones I'm thinking about are small sachets of soy sauce, or the labels printed for in-store, freshly baked bread. The labels that are 90% whitespace with 2pt high text that you almost need a microscope to read. The trend of unreadably-tiny-font-on-an-area-that-could-accomodate-a-billboard seems to have been increasing in the past few years and I would love an actual reason for it. My guesses 1. They don't actually want you to read the labels. They package the raisin bread with the whole grain bread in the same exact package, label, tie, everything, with the only difference being the teeny tiny words that allow you distinguish, in the mood lighting of the bread department, what it actually is. It makes shifting unwanted inventory easier
2. They have software that can't scale a font to make it fit the space, and also have to cater to labels that are potentially 1024 characters long, so they take space / # chars = microscopic font. Problem solved!
3. Someone in accounting worked out that based on font size, total chars printed, total number of labels, and the cost of ink, they would save $5.47 each year if they printed in 2pt font size.
4. No one involved from label design to product creation to printing to stocking has ever actually tried purchasing a product printed like this in an actual store. To save time and money they did zero usability testing
5. They are simply evil. Can anyone shed some light here?cheers Chris Maunder
I too despise the way they (manufacturers) handle this however you have to keep in mind that there are always government regulations, sometimes at multiple levels, that have to be followed. I imagine what they put on them is required and the text has to fit and sometimes on something small. This of course doesn't explain this for other products that have larger containers but I imagine the same machine(s) are used to do the text regardless of the packaging (regardless of it's size) and so instead of changing up font sizes they leave it as is using whatever is the smallest font that works on all products they make. Plants that produce the boxes/packaging used to box up and ship just about anything don't have different machines for each container size/type they make. They will typically have a few going and each will make 1 or more batches of a specific box/container and then they switch the machine up to do another type of box/container. You can bet that the majority of them would rather you not read any of that info (there are a few more health conscious companies that do want you to read that stuff). There's way too many different sized and shaped containers to have a separate machine making each one.
-
Here is what I see FYI Thanks for the reply Hmm. We’re having trouble finding that site. We can’t connect to the server at codename-indigo.com. If you entered the right address, you can: Try again later Check your network connection Check that Firefox has permission to access the web (you might be connected but behind a firewall)
I took that website down years ago, back in 2018 I think, and replaced it with my new Code Project Footer "Discover my world at" @ jkirkerx.com right after that. I remember Chris giving me a hard time about the how Code Project writes the footers in real time, to what ever the footer is at the moment you post, so you can't change the footer in all your posts at one time. Strange that your seeing that. Codename Indigo was a failed project, where I attempted to make ecommerce technology in Microsoft .Net with MVC using views, and then discovered Angular and went that direction instead, and got stumped in Mar of 2020, when I decided to outsource this technology to Ebay and Amazon to see how they do it. After that, my online business took off to heights I never imagined to be possible, and is the source if my income, But my jkirkerx.com did actually generate some good leads, that turned into huge projects lasting for years. But soon, jkirkerx.com will change again, after my trademarks with USPTO get approved so I can go to the next level of marketing with my online business and code business.
If it ain't broke don't fix it Discover my world at jkirkerx.com
-
Is there anyone here who works on systems that print food labels. The specific ones I'm thinking about are small sachets of soy sauce, or the labels printed for in-store, freshly baked bread. The labels that are 90% whitespace with 2pt high text that you almost need a microscope to read. The trend of unreadably-tiny-font-on-an-area-that-could-accomodate-a-billboard seems to have been increasing in the past few years and I would love an actual reason for it. My guesses 1. They don't actually want you to read the labels. They package the raisin bread with the whole grain bread in the same exact package, label, tie, everything, with the only difference being the teeny tiny words that allow you distinguish, in the mood lighting of the bread department, what it actually is. It makes shifting unwanted inventory easier
2. They have software that can't scale a font to make it fit the space, and also have to cater to labels that are potentially 1024 characters long, so they take space / # chars = microscopic font. Problem solved!
3. Someone in accounting worked out that based on font size, total chars printed, total number of labels, and the cost of ink, they would save $5.47 each year if they printed in 2pt font size.
4. No one involved from label design to product creation to printing to stocking has ever actually tried purchasing a product printed like this in an actual store. To save time and money they did zero usability testing
5. They are simply evil. Can anyone shed some light here?cheers Chris Maunder
I'm voting for number one; they don't want me to read the label. The teeny tiniest print I find is for the ingredients list on cat food cans, where I want to know if it has actual fish in it or just guar gum and crab shells.
-
Is there anyone here who works on systems that print food labels. The specific ones I'm thinking about are small sachets of soy sauce, or the labels printed for in-store, freshly baked bread. The labels that are 90% whitespace with 2pt high text that you almost need a microscope to read. The trend of unreadably-tiny-font-on-an-area-that-could-accomodate-a-billboard seems to have been increasing in the past few years and I would love an actual reason for it. My guesses 1. They don't actually want you to read the labels. They package the raisin bread with the whole grain bread in the same exact package, label, tie, everything, with the only difference being the teeny tiny words that allow you distinguish, in the mood lighting of the bread department, what it actually is. It makes shifting unwanted inventory easier
2. They have software that can't scale a font to make it fit the space, and also have to cater to labels that are potentially 1024 characters long, so they take space / # chars = microscopic font. Problem solved!
3. Someone in accounting worked out that based on font size, total chars printed, total number of labels, and the cost of ink, they would save $5.47 each year if they printed in 2pt font size.
4. No one involved from label design to product creation to printing to stocking has ever actually tried purchasing a product printed like this in an actual store. To save time and money they did zero usability testing
5. They are simply evil. Can anyone shed some light here?cheers Chris Maunder
Its not just food. WD "My passport" serial number is so small a magnifying glass barley helped. Amazon receipt allowed me to get the right string - too bad WD registration splotch app still said was bad Id - just make things so small no one will ever get them right and corps will never have a liability to support stuff (as if it mattered) - also a piece of crap db lookup to confirm correct makes it set in stone like the mafia with cement galoshes
-
Is there anyone here who works on systems that print food labels. The specific ones I'm thinking about are small sachets of soy sauce, or the labels printed for in-store, freshly baked bread. The labels that are 90% whitespace with 2pt high text that you almost need a microscope to read. The trend of unreadably-tiny-font-on-an-area-that-could-accomodate-a-billboard seems to have been increasing in the past few years and I would love an actual reason for it. My guesses 1. They don't actually want you to read the labels. They package the raisin bread with the whole grain bread in the same exact package, label, tie, everything, with the only difference being the teeny tiny words that allow you distinguish, in the mood lighting of the bread department, what it actually is. It makes shifting unwanted inventory easier
2. They have software that can't scale a font to make it fit the space, and also have to cater to labels that are potentially 1024 characters long, so they take space / # chars = microscopic font. Problem solved!
3. Someone in accounting worked out that based on font size, total chars printed, total number of labels, and the cost of ink, they would save $5.47 each year if they printed in 2pt font size.
4. No one involved from label design to product creation to printing to stocking has ever actually tried purchasing a product printed like this in an actual store. To save time and money they did zero usability testing
5. They are simply evil. Can anyone shed some light here?cheers Chris Maunder
Chris Maunder wrote:
in the past few years and I would love an actual reason for it.
At least for food the required number of items that must be on a food label have increased. Like whether there are nuts or processed where nuts might have been used in something else.