Digital Age Printing

In the beginning of this century, the printing industry was divided into prepress, printing, and postpress. With the development of new technologies and the continuous improvement of user requirements, the steps between prepress and printing were gradually reduced, and the boundaries became more and more. Obscure, the two technologies that can reflect this transformation are direct platemaking and digital printing. Network data transmission, digital prepress and printing technologies have opened up a whole new market for printing. According to statistics, the printing volume of color pages in 1994 accounted for 14% of the total printing volume, and it is expected that it will account for 50% by 2003.

Digital technology has played a significant role in the development of the printing industry. It has drastically shortened the printing cycle, reduced manual operations, improved product quality, and increased the degree of automation. These changes have driven printers to provide their customers with a full range of services with shorter cycle times and lower prices.

CTP and digital printing are trends in the printing industry

If printing companies do not have plans to develop these technologies, they will feel powerless in the future. Large printing companies with abundant funds have begun to prepare to use digital technology, first R&D mode, and then gradually expand to various operating areas. For medium-scale printing companies to invest in new technologies, they must rely on two aspects: capital and technical skills. For these companies, the price of CTP is quite high, and they usually consider investing in printing presses first. In terms of technology, printers with prepress experience will be able to master the most advanced technologies such as CTP, FM network and high-fidelity color. Small print companies can invest in polyester version of the CTP system, which can use the original laser imagesetter and workflow, such as Agfa's Select Plate. The marketing strategy for such small print companies is to produce short-duration monochrome, spot, and four-color prints.

Opportunities and Challenges Brought by New Technologies

Invest in new technologies, opportunities and challenges coexist. Therefore, if you want to succeed, you must understand that the technology can meet the requirements of users and the market, and can maintain the competitiveness and get the maximum return. The time for making an investment also needs to be accurate. If you invest too early, you will find yourself struggling to open up new markets. If you invest too late, you will lose your competitiveness. If you have the right time, you will be able to take advantage of your advantage.

Once new technologies are invested, it is very important how to better play their functions. What needs to be done is to train relevant departments and personnel. In any case, this kind of training should be extended to all relevant departments because the digital workflow is inevitable. It will increase the integrity and dependence between departments. In addition to employees in the production department, internal management and logistics departments should also understand how new technologies will affect their respective work. The company’s sales staff should clearly understand that new technologies will bring more benefits to customers and open up new markets. Since many customers are very familiar with the development of printing technology, the salesperson must be able to inform the customer very professionally how each technology is used.

Early deployment of new technologies requires careful deployment. Customers who understand this new technology and understand your company's situation can give some jobs to try it out and let the operators gradually gain experience in order to fully master the new technology.

Provide customers with satisfactory service

As customers, they want a short printing cycle, low prices, and high quality. Due to the popularity of desktop publishing systems, many customers can do their own front-end creativity and production. For printing companies, they should be proficient in digital prepress processes and learn how to use standard file formats (such as PDF) to simplify operations.

Different business ideas are needed for different markets. We are analyzing a market: For example, magazines are printed, and magazines and magazines all receive the same amount of advertising. Because they use the desktop publishing system to make the board, the printing company is required to allow them to modify the layout at the last minute to accommodate the added advertisements. Due to the relatively high circulation of magazines, the tight production time, the number of periodicals, and the requirement for color and the quality of printing, the use of the CTP digital platemaking system is most appropriate. However, it is necessary to purchase more than one film scanner, digitize the film of the advertiser's children, and then make a printing plate together with other electronic documents.

Simplify the workflow

There are many details that need to be dealt with in the digital workflow. It is necessary to strengthen communication and communication between various departments within the company and between the company and customers in order to avoid problems.

In the CTP and digital printing workflow, the cost of error rework is quite high. If the problem occurs in operation, the operator must be trained; if there is a problem with the customer's file, the prepress pre-check and drum failure should be strengthened. Repair features and strengthen customer training.

For jobs with a large number of images, the printing company needs to use the OPI server. OPI can reduce congestion on the network and increase production. When page layout, low-resolution images can be used for editing. In the final output process, the high-resolution image replaces the image itself.

If you go further, printing companies can use Adobe's PDF and PDF-based workflows to streamline the prepress workflow. PDF is a file format that includes all fonts and images, and is independent of the operating platform. It can solve a series of pre-screening issues. Once the file is "distilled" into PDF by Postscript, the raster processor can handle and screen it. Each page of the PDF file is independent, so a problem with one page does not affect other pages. Using a workflow that is similar to Agfa's, a multi-output function of one raster can ensure the consistency of digital samples and prints, and it can also automate layouts and traps to increase the efficiency of printing companies.

Using appropriate proofing equipment for proofing can reduce costs and save time. If the production volume is large, digital proofing can be used to reduce the intermediate links such as film and syrup. The selection of digital proofing equipment will directly affect the printing cost and output. For the short print or medium print digital print, polyester version CTP can be used. With up to 15,000 prints, this is the most economical direct platemaking method. If the print quality of the frequently printed products is very demanding and it is a long-run printing, then a metal platesetter (such as Agfa's Galileo system) should be considered. This system can output 21 pieces per hour. 32.29 ×44.5 (2400dpi) media, to ensure that multiple presses can print at the same time.
Digital technology is used in printing to greatly increase the speed of printing and to accelerate the dissemination of information and culture. We are striding toward the new century. The next century will be a digital century. CTP and digital printing are coming to us.