Printing Technology

Printing Technology

The printing process has three stages—prepress, press and binding or post-press. Prepress workers prepare material for printing presses. They perform a variety of tasks involved with transforming text and pictures into finished pages and making printing plates of the pages. Desktop publishing poses new challenges for the printing industry. The printing industry is rapidly moving toward complete “digital imaging,” by which customers’ material received digitally is converted directly into printing plates. Other innovations in prepress work are digital color page makeup systems, electronic page layout systems and off-press color proofing systems. Printing press operators prepare, operate and maintain the printing presses in a pressroom. In most shops, p ess ope ato s also pe fo m p e enti e maintenance Comp te s allo p ess ope ato s to pe fo m press operators also perform preventive maintenance. Computers allow press operators to perform many of their tasks electronically. With this equipment, press operators monitor the printing process on a control panel or computer monitor, which allows them to adjust the press electronically.