To be cost effective, it is often necessary to order a minimum of thousands of copies of your print job. However, many small businesses don't have the need for thousands of anything. And, by the time you use them up, the information contained in those documents will be out of date or obsolete.

Fortunately, that all changed as we acquired the ability to quickly transfer electronic files over the Internet and the technology behind digital printing became more affordable for professional quality output.

This new technology opened the door for small business owners to be able to print glossy, full-color documents at affordable prices.

For the most part, the cost is saved in the set-up time.

Traditionally, print jobs would start with a graphic designer crafting a file on their computer. Then, this file would need to be converted into a film negative and then manually set up and configured on the actual printing press by a press operator.

The labor hours and material necessary for this step of your print job makes up a large percentage of the final cost.

With a fully digital operation, this entire set-up process is more or less skipped and handled completely electronically.

The digital process starts the same way. You or your graphic designer creates your document using a computer. However, after that, the job gets sent to the printer electronically. Depending on the size of the files, this is done as an e-mail attachment or using an File Transfer Protocol (FTP) server.

Once the printer receives the files, the company opens your print job in their computer at their shop. And, their computer is directly linked to their printing press, so the file gets sent electronically to the press, skipping the entire pre-press set up.

So, that just leaves you with the cost of your material (paper and ink) and the fees associated with running their equipment while your job is on the press.

Some companies have taken this a step further and offered the same type of service for branded products.

How many times have you told yourself how nice it would be to have coffee cups, hats, shirts or any of those types of promotional items? But, what small business wants to deal with the hassle of ordering or paying for hundreds or even thousands of those items at a time?

Well, one company has stepped in to fill the niche of short-run digital printing promotional items.

The company is called CafePress (http://www.cafepress.com). The items you have to choose from are somewhat limited but they have the basics covered ˜ hats, shirts, mouse pads, clocks, mugs and so on.

Plus, they bring in seasonal items as well. At the time I wrote this article, they were featuring back-to-school items, fall clothing, such as fleece vests and sweatshirts, and various backpacks.

The process of creating the personalized items you would like to sell is fairly simple. The first step is to create a free membership and upload your logo. For the various products CafePress offers, you may need play with the logo size and resolution.

After that, you select the items you are interested in and preview them online with your logo appearing right on the product. This allows you to see exactly how the product will look if you decide to order.

Once you have the products set up, you are ready to order. There is a base price for all the items you would like to purchase, but they also offer the ability to make your items open the public and mark up the costs if you want to sell online.

But, for the purposes of this column, you are ready to pay for your personalized products with no minimum number to buy.

Now, as I said in the beginning of this column, there is a time and place for traditional printing. Most often, when ordering larger quantities of products and printing higher volumes of your print jobs, traditional printing will be more cost effective and as good or higher quality.

But, for short-run print jobs or a small number of personalized products, digital printing can save the small business owner time and money.