How to print magnetic door tags

From Ashdown

Door tags should have magnetic backing and be exactly 2 inches by 3.5 inches (exactly business card size).

Printing door tags in-house is a good idea, since AHEC has its own colour laser, we can control the design fully, and print at will whenever more are needed. There are a two basic ways to print magnetic door tags:

• Purchasing Magnetic business cards that can be printed on. The two major disadvantages to this are (1) they are typically flimsy and thin, and (2) it is very hard (though possible) to find ones that work with laser printers. Avoid resorting to inkjet printing as inkjets are slow and the dried ink is not usually water-resistant.
• Recommended: Purchasing normal business cards, printing all the nametags on them, and sticking them to adhesive magnets that are pre-cut to business card size. This results in a nice-looking, reasonably sturdy nametag. The work of sticking 500 nametags to adhesive magnets takes 4 people about 1 hour, so it is not too difficult. I recommend the following products, which were used in orientation 2009. Both are available at Harvard Staples and Alewife Staples stores, but they may not always have them in stock, so you may want to order online. Dheera 15:05, 18 September 2009 (EDT)
  • Avery Clean Edge Laser Business Cards, White $15.29 for 200 (09/2009)
  • Staples Business Card Magnets $22.99 for 100 (09/2009)

Dheera has a script that will take a list of names or usernames and generate (using LaTeX) a multi-page PDF document full of nametags to arbitrary dimensions and margins and insert background images, which can then be directly printed.