PRINTING

What is a Printing and Publishing Industry?

The printing and publishing industry, defined broadly, includes firms whose business is dominated by printing operations such as platemaking, bookbinding, and publishers, whether or not they actually print their own material.

Types of Printing Industry

• The industry is organized by the type of printing process used:

Lithography

Gravure

Flexography

Screen

Letter press

The Fundamental Steps in the printing process are:

1. Imaging operations

Composition & Typesetting

Photographic negative or positive

Transparency production

The five printing technologies differ significantly in how the image is transferred from the image carrier to the substrate in the printing step.

Fundamental Steps in the printing process…

1. Imaging operations

2. Pre-press operations

In Pre-press operations, an image carrier is produced that can transfer the ink in the image area and can repel the ink in the non-image areas.

Fundamental Steps in the printing process are:

1. Imaging operations

2. Pre-press operations

3. Post-press operations

In the post-press step, the printed material may receive any one of numerous finishing operations e.g. cutting, folding, collating, binding, perforating, drilling etc depending on the desired form of the final operations.

LETTERPRESS PRINTING

• The letters and designs to be reproduced are raised above the non-printing areas of the press plate.

• Using plates for the printing, ink is applied only to the raised areas, by means of inking rollers.

LETTERPRESS PRINTING

Raised surface are the types set by hand or machine, engravings or plates of copper, zinc or other metal, wood, rubber, plastic or a combination of materials.

LETTER PRESS

• Letterpress printing remained the primary way to print and distribute information until the twentieth century.

• Letterpress printing is a printing technique which has been in use in the West since the 15th Century, when it was used by Johannes Gutenberg to manufacture the Gutenberg Bible.

PLATEN PRESS• In Platen Press, paper is fed to a flat

surface called a platen. The platen contacts the inked type form clamped against bed of the press.

• It is used extensively in small printing jobs such as name cards, bill heads, forms etc…

FLAT-BED CYLINDER PRESS

In Flat Bed Cylinder Press, paper is held on a cylinder by means of grippers and is rolled over the printing form locked on the flat bed. The printing form moves horizontally, and the paper revolves with the cylinder over the form.

ROTARY PRESS

Rotary Press on which both paper and plates are on cylinders rolling against each other. The plates (stereotypes or electrolytes) are curved. Paper used for printing on a rotary press may be in sheets (sheet-fed press) or in rolls (web –fed press)

Letterpress Process: Inputs and OutputsProcess Inputs Outputs

Imaging Film Used film, old film

Paper Scrap paper

Cleaning solutions Rags with solvents

Fixer May be volatile and contribute to emission

Plate making Plate mold Used molds

Plate developer solution Waste water solution

Printing Cleaning solutions Ink solvents lead to air emissions.

Ink Waste ink hazardous to waste water.

Finishing Paper & Adhesives Reject prints and edges from trimming.

Types of Printing Industry

Market Share

47%

19%

17%

11%3%3%Lithography

Gravure

Flexography

Letterpress

Screen

Others

Lithography

• Lithography is a chemical process .

• Lithography depends on the principle that oil and water do not mix

Images (words and art) are put on plates which

are dampened first by water, then ink. The ink

sticks to the image area, the water to the non-

image area. Then the image is transferred to a

rubber blanket, and from the rubber blanket to

paper.

GravureThis uses almost exclusively electro-mechanically engraved copper image carriers to separate the image area from the non-image area. This image carrier is usually a cylinder.

Ink is applied to the engraved cylinder, and the printing substrate is brought into contact with the cylinder with sufficient pressure.

Sheets

Ink Fountain

Impression roller

Dryer

Additional Stations for Multicolor Printing

Sheets

Doctor blade

Screen Printing

• Unlike the impervious plates used in the other printing processes, the screen printing process uses a porous mesh. The mesh is stretched tightly over a frame, and stencil, which defines the image to be printed.

• The major chemicals used are organic solvents, adhesives and inks. Screen printing is very versatile, and can be used to print on paper, plastics, glass, metals, textiles etc.