Copy Position

Copy position — also called wind direction or unwind position — describes how the printed label is oriented as it leaves the roll. It has nothing to do with the artwork and everything to do with the machine: an automatic applicator peels the label off the web at one fixed point, so the roll has to hand it over already facing the right way. Order the same label in the wrong wind and it will come off sideways or upside down on the pack, and there is nothing the operator can do about it short of rewinding the whole roll.

The chart below is the industry standard set of eight. The split is simple. Positions 1–4 are wound out, with the printed face on the outside of the roll; positions 5–8 are wound in, printed face towards the core, liner outwards. Within each group the four options are the four quarter turns of the copy relative to the direction the web unwinds: 1 and 5 have the copy upright, 2 and 6 have it inverted, and 3, 4, 7 and 8 are the two sideways orientations — the ones you want when a tall label is applied to a bottle that passes the applicator on its side.

When you order, just quote the number. If you are not sure which one you need, the fastest answer is on the pack: take a roll you already run, hold it the way it sits on the machine and match it against the chart. Failing that, tell us the make and model of your applicator or printer and we will look it up. If your labels are applied by hand, wind direction barely matters — what matters there is the way you press them down — so we will send position 1 unless you say otherwise.

Rolls also need a core size, a maximum outside diameter and a gap between labels before we can make them — how to measure a label covers all of it, and a quote will confirm the wind before anything is printed.