How Can I Learn More About Printing?

Hi Monica

Print is a wide subject and you will have to narrow it down a bit.

examples:

Fine print on documents - usually dangerous legal stuff.

Printing of invoices - laser. dot matrix, ink jet.

Printed work - newspapers, periodicals etc.

Printed on package material.

Screen printing.

The patterns printed on material used for making dresses.

Producing a copy of your fingerprint will explain a lot about most printing.

If the inked finger is rolled over the paper the ink on the highest points of the grooves are transfered to the paper while the rest cannot be transfered.

The same finger will keep om producing the same print.

Can you define print? If you mean printing, you can probably sign up for a printing course at your local trade school. You can also study other printing techniques like silkscreening at your local art school.The fastest way would be to simply talk to your shop floor supervisor to pick up a pointer or two.

The most common method for printing large quantities of documents is offset lithography. Here, special printing plates are used to transfer ink onto rubber blanket lined rollers. An acid solution is applied to wash off excess ink before the images on the plate are transferred onto the blankets. The reversed image on the blankets are then transferred onto the paper. Heat is then applied to the paper to dry it. Finally, the paper is cut to size. I assume this is the printing method your company is using.

What type of printing course you should go for would obviously depend on what printing method(s) are used in your company, your reasons for wanting to study printing and your own personal interests.

en , i am in the field of paper package. Here, we limit printing to this scope.

nodoubtly, want to learn somthing,school is the best choice. but there will be some confining elments, for example, economical elment, limit time. I 've try talk with out shop floor supervisor, but the receiving is quite limited.

Yeah, we use offset lithography. the special printing plates are made of aluminium which we broght from the plate supplier. There is a special machine in our company to make plate according to correspondent design(picture on final products) then we use this kind of plate to print our products. you are quite right about our printing process.

Thanks for your kind help. Perhaps i know what i should do.

Thanks very much!

Monica

Generally speaking printing is becoming a lost art. Yes there are local trade schools, but most are now in High Schools and even these are disappearing. Why? InkJet technology. Look up Hewlett Packard's "Indigo" line of high volume commercial printers. The Indigo line is easily found on HP's website under business and commercial products. There are a host of other companies making similar equipment, including Epson, Sony, Olympus, and others. Your best bet, take some classes in computer software especially Adobe and other print software at your local community college. The new commercial printers are all computerized. The days of 1,2,3,4 color offset presses are almost over.

Kodak's Versamark line also does high speed inkjet printing.

Go to

http://packaging-equipment.globalspec.com/LearnMore/Material_Handling_Packaging_Equipment/Packaging_Labeling/Industrial_Printing_Equipment

for information.

Find out whose printing presses are in use in your plant and search their websites for information.

Check the TAPPI web site (www.TAPPI.org)

Offset printing is not dead yet, but is an old technology that does not attract the same attention or investment as the so-called hi-tech areas receive.