Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Basic Information You Should Know About Offset Printing

By Anita Tan

Many important functions in a business such as maintaining flow of information intra-company and marketing the offerings of the company require printing service. Hence, it is good to have some basic knowledge of how printing works, especially offset printing, which is one of the most widely used printing techniques.

Offset printing is so well known among printing service providers and clients because for large volumes, it turns out to be cheaper than alternative methods. That is why for bulk orders any good printing company would advise you to opt for offset printing.

The ink employed during offset printing has oil as the medium and does not dissolve in water. In offset printing, rubber blankets play a transitional role in copying the image on the paper, which is originally on the plate.

The first step is preparing the images. Earlier the images were prepared by creating film negatives and were then transmitted to printing plates made of aluminum. In the current times, the printers can use the image setting system for preparing the plates directly. After this, the plate is attached to a cylinder with the correct side facing upwards. Then the water and ink are spread on the image plates, one after another. The image receives the ink while the rest of the area gets a thin film of water, which makes sure that the ink does not spill beyond the images.

Next, the image is inverted when it is transmitted to a rubber blanket which is attached to another cylinder. The image is then printed with its right side facing up by cutting sheets of papers into correct size and putting them on a third cylinder.

The task of printing is completed by the printing company by consolidating the printed sheets using staples or glue or in any other way as per the requirements of the client.

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