Printing stages from technical equipment to binding

The printing stages are three stages that the publication passes before it reaches the hand of the customer or the reader, and each of these stages has requirements and special circumstances that differ from the other stages, and in this article we will talk about these stages in detail.

Stages of printing within the major offset press in Egypt

• Prepress:

This stage is known as the stage of technical supplies, in which the publication is prepared of whatever kind, whether a book, catalog, brochure, or otherwise for printing.
At this point, the printing technicians make sure that the design is printable, not every design accepts printing in terms of its implementation and compatibility with the existing machines.
At this stage, the publication is converted into films and then into zincs, for which offset printing is famous, and through these zinc we get the surface of the printing
And the printing surface is the original or the master in which the process of printing is carried out in the second stage, which is the printing stage.
By obtaining the printing surface, any quantity requested by the customer is printed, and in recent years the field of offset printing has witnessed a great development.
 This development resulted in the creation of a device known as "CTB", which allows the use of the computer to direct the design directly to the surface of the print or "print masters", ending the stage of technical installations.

•  Print production stage:

At this stage, offset printing machines are used to print the master print, and these machines are of two types: the first: flat dealing with the sheet and printing it, and the second: roll machines.
And the stages of printing are not completed by reaching this stage, because the printed matter must enter some stage for some printing in order to obtain a final product.

• Post-print.

This stage is known as the vincing or binding stage, during which the print passes more than one stage, starting from the binding of the cover with glue.
Then comes the role of human operations, sulfonation and cutting, through machines and production lines that do this automatically after it was old in hand.
After this stage, the publication is ready to be delivered to the customer or distributed to readers, but there is another stage that cannot be combined with the printing stages, but these stages depend on it.
 And this stage is the examination of paper and inks, which we can call the stage of checking the materials used in printing.

• Raw material inspection stage

Major presses have special analysis laboratories, whose job is to check all the materials and inputs of the printing process, whether paper or plate, films, inks or printing solutions »
With regard to paper, for example, its dimensions, weights, dimensions, and whiteness are examined. As for inks, their quality, viscosity, and liquidity ratio are checked, and the number of sheets that can be printed with them, is it suitable for the machine as well or not?
Despite the advantages of offset printing, the time taken for these stages to produce the final product is very large, which does not correspond to the needs of some customers who want to print the prints as quickly as possible.
But digital printing, or what is sometimes called digital printing, overcame this by way of issuing a direct print order to the file via a personal computer without entering the technical equipment stage that offset printing follows, which saves significant time and effort for the customer and the owner of the printing press.