The work aims to prepare a water-based ink with sustained-release antimicrobial properties, in order to meet the safety requirements of ink for food package. With β-Cyclodextrin (β-CD) used as packaging material, the cinnamon essential oil microcapsules were prepared by ultrasonic method. The influences of the mass ratio of core (cinnamon essential oil) to wall (β-CD), the mass ratio of wall to water, reaction speed and reaction time on the embedding rate were studied through L9(34) orthogonal test. Antibacterial water-based inks were prepared by using the prepared cinnamon essential oil microcapsules as antibacterial agent, and adding water-based acrylic resin, pigments, fillers, water and various additives as the ingredients. Escherichia coli and penicillin were selected to test the antibacterial properties of the inks. The optimum technological conditions for the preparation of cinnamon essential oil microcapsules by ultrasonic method were as follows: the mass ratio of core to wall was 1∶5, the mass ratio of wall to water was 1∶8, the reaction speed was 2,000 r/min and the reaction time was 6 min. Under these conditions, the cinnamon essential oil microcapsules with the embedding rate of 33.88% could be prepared. The antimicrobial test showed that the antibacterial water-based ink of cinnamon essential oil microcapsule had obvious inhibition effect on Escherichia coli and penicillin. When the mass fraction of cinnamon essential oil microcapsule was 7%, the inhibition zone diameters of Escherichia coli and penicillin were respectively 24 mm and 17 mm. Water-based inks with significant antibacterial properties can be prepared by add-ing cinnamon essential oil microcapsules, which will improve the application value of water-based inks in food package.