What is a Book Printing Press?
Book printing presses were first developed in the 14thCentury. A printing press is a device that can mass produce uniform prints, usually text in the form of books, magazines, newspapers, and so on. To learn more about the history of printing presses see our blog: The History of Printing in China.
The age of electronics and computers has changed the way printed materials are produced. Print production operations like the typesetting machine and PDI Electronic scanner came about in the 1950’s, but this technology was not improved until the ‘70s. Next came computer to film in the 1980’s, and computer to metal plate printing around 1991.
Printing Presses
The printing press is the production machine of major printing processes. Printing presses provide secure and precise mounting for images, feeding paper for printing, and delivery of printed paper. There are different types of presses:
Offset Lithography– Offset presses have three printing cylinders: a plate cylinder, a blanket cylinder, and an impression cylinder. An offset press has 4 important advantages:
- Rubber blanket surface conforms to irregular print surfaces, which provides less pressure and improves print quality on rough surface papers.
- The papers do not contact the printing plates.
- The plates are right reading rather than reverse
- Less ink is essential for equal coverage
There are two types of offset presses, sheetfed and web. Sheetfed is for smaller runs, web produces larger quantity runs.
Digital presses– While offset printers use plates for the printing process, digital is a plateless process. Digital printing has 3 key benefits:
- Like a copier, the printed sheets do not require a drying period.
- Capable of variable printing from impression to impression.
- Require fewer manual skills printing than conventional plates.
This type of press allows you to print shorter runs, for example printing quantities from 1 to 500 books. Print-On Demand uses digital presses for printing.
PRC Book Printing presses are offset presses. We produce high quality books with our state of the art presses, which are updated and maintained throughout the year. Please call us today to learn more about our services at 888.659.8320 or email us at info@prcbookprinting.com
