digital vs offset printing
The days of portraying your writing output by storing pens and using vellum paper are long passed. The ills of mass production are many.
- The quantity of paper and ink used is only effective for large jobs, and often has to be contracted out. This all adds to storage and processing costs.The size of paper sheets adds up costs as well.
- Speed of turnaround time is slow. It becomes labor intensive to set more and larger sheets into the feeding and sorting printer trays. In addition A first print operation warms up fast with less defect than an offset job.
- Also larger jobs are usually set to double-sided printing for relative space saving per printed assembly piece. This affects drying time and also may require a second overlay run due to extra ink usage!
- One has to decide if a large or small job is necessary. For large jobs offset printing is a better process for now However for longer term operations this may change due to the changing of digital printers with smarter features.
- Quality of print is usually better with digital printing due to Less color bleeding on reproduction inherent with longer jobs. Colors tend to drift especially on dot matrix printers.
- Proofing. Data becomes more granular on large jobs due to machine wear, ink and coolant usage and time involved. Heat of friction alone affects quality! This leads to more proofing being done on the whole job printing device. With offset, a separate proofing operation device becomes necessary due to the quantities and time involved.
- Digital printing can be tailored more to individual requirements than offset printers. It's easier to print on custom shapes and to set up variable custom designs. This tends to uniqueness which is always more desired rather than uniformity. In an offset operation there is no time to break from uniformity and tailor!
Much of these problems you don't encounter if you use a print on demand POD set up for large jobs. Digital printing is the wave of the future for convenience’s sake in most of our printing!
Recent Comments
10
Thanks Mike,
I’m a bit sad to see print shops dwindling...there’s nothing like the smell of paper and ink fresh off the press!
KyleAnn
Mike,
This answers a question about a "large print" library book I just finished. The book by Jonathon Kellerman was obviously not the quality print that I have come to expect.
I also appreciate the need for less expensive reprint methods for distribution by services paid for by my tax dollars.
I have been reading more online for the past few years, both on the computer and the Kendal. I was interested in how the "large print" reprinted, so selected this one to read.
With more options for producing in the "large print" format, I was just surprised at how the paper pages of the book felt, and the fact that editing had not been attended to. There were a few misspelled words.
Is the overall expectation of the quality of the product by the reader changing, due to the new processes now being used?
Thanks for your information,
Sami
Hey Mike,
Thanks for sharing. You have given me some information I didn't realize.
Tried and True
Elaine
Hey this is a fantastic summary. Great research and great of you to share it. Much appreciated! Marc.
See more comments
Thanks for sharing.