Press Printing

Many products are printed using press printing. The letterpress is commonly used for business cards, letterhead, proofs, billheads, forms, posters, announcements, imprinting, embossing and hot-leaf stamping. It is the oldest method of printing using plates with the print areas raised above the areas that do not require printing. The lithographic press and the flexographic press are gradually replacing the letterhead, but since this equipment is so costly most printing companies do not upgrade to newer equipment until they experience problems with their letterpresses. When you set up to print, with these newer presses, you have to go through an extensive process to prepare the equipment for a successful result. The image has to be metal cast rather than use printing plates and this is more expensive and takes a lot longer. When you use a letterpress for press printing, different amounts of pressure are needed on the substrate depending on the size and the images that have to be printed. In the printing process, various chemicals, such as film developers and fixers, inks, and blanket and roller washes, are used. Adjustments have to be made throughout the whole printing process to make sure that everything is just right and this, in itself, can be very time-consuming. The type used in the common press printing is called relief. It is raised above the plain areas. There are

two main types of letterhead presses used for printing: * Flat-bed cylinder letterpress. This design uses either a vertical or horizontal bed with a plate locked to the bed. This plate passes over the inking roller and up against the substrate. This substrate then makes a revolution around a cylinder before imprinting the words or images onto the paper. * Web-fed rotary press. These are used in newspaper and book printing where two sides of the paper are printed at the same time. They can usually print up to four pages across the web making it very economical. Rotary presses use heat-set inks and are equipped with dryers for printing on coated paper, such as that used in magazines.