It's all good

Apr 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Katherine O'Brien

Should your brochure be printed on an offset or digital press? We can offer only some general guidelines — there are no ironclad rules. Only you can answer the most important question: What is the purpose of the brochure? Does it have a call to action or is it a branding piece? Will it be personalized? Other buyer-specific factors include the brochure's intended use, size, quantity, quality and timing requirements. We've outlined some advantages and disadvantages of both processes on the following pages. The choice is yours!

While's it's an imperfect analogy, offset and digital printing processes can be thought of in automotive terms. One is faster than the other, but both will get you where you need to go.

Link to Document
Click on link above to view Offset Job Submission diagram

Offset options

If the average sheetfed offset press were a car, it would be like your grandma's old Cadillac: huge and seemingly indestructible. Although there are larger machines, typical offset presses are full (or eight-up); half (four-up) or quarter (two-up) sized. A full size sheet is 28 × 40 inches. Web offset (also called roll-fed) presses include narrow webs used for forms and labels, half webs for producing eight-page signatures and full webs for 16-page signatures. Sheetfed presses are typically suited for press runs ranging from 5,000 on up; web presses may be the more economical choice for jobs of 25,000 impressions or more.

Web offset presses often are used to print business forms, newspapers, inserts, advertising literature, long-run books and magazines. Sheetfed presses produce a wide variety of jobs including business cards, brochures, catalogs, direct mail and posters.

These presses are as solid and steady as Granny's land yacht, but don't call them slow — some web presses can crank out 70,000 copies per hour; while some sheetfed presses can churn out 18,000 sheets per hour (which translates to 300 sheets per minute). Nonetheless, offset printing can be a time intensive process, largely due to the makeready requirements.

Ready, steady makeready

Makeready is what happens between the printing of the last good product sheet of one job and the first good product sheet of the next one. Sheetfed press operators must hang plates (made by the prepress department) and adjust the press feeder, ink keys, ink/water balance and registration. Finally, the operator checks press output against the proof. While computer integrated manufacturing has dramatically reduced press makeready times, it is an inevitable red light on the offset highway. Once the press is up and running, however, it can zip along like a car on a deserted expressway.

Next stop: postpress department

Most web presses are capable of some inline finishing — devices range from pre-folders, plow folders, perforating units, die cutters, slitters, rotary trimmers, inkjet imagers, and imprinting and mechanical numbering devices to gluers and special chemical applicators. Sheetfed presses typically are sent on to the postpress department for cutting, stitching, perfect binding or folding. In some cases, sheetfed jobs will require some drying time before being sent on for additional processing. Not all sheetfed jobs will have to pull over to the shoulder at this stage — UV-equipped presses offer fast drying times (not to mention excellent rub resistance and high gloss).

Two-car garage: hybrid printing

Direct-imaging (DI) presses were introduced almost 15 years ago. These offset presses address two of the biggest trends in the graphic arts market: short runs and digital workflows. Because DI presses feature on-press imaging — rather than plates being made on a CTP device and then mounted on press — they offer automatic register and speedy makeready, key factors in a short-run printing environment. Current makeready times on these presses are said to be less than 15 minutes vs. the hour a four-color, non-DI press might require.

DI presses typically are used for runs ranging from 350 to 5,000 impressions, but they are capable of up to 20,000. These presses, primarily found in the two-up format, are popular with small printers expanding beyond two-color presses and larger commercial printers seeking an efficient short-run alternative. Many printers use them for in between jobs — jobs that are too long for their toner-based equipment but too short for their conventional presses.

Offset presses, on their own, can't produce variable data printing, but it is possible to do versioned printing. This hybrid process combines full-color offset printing and a black-and-white personalized element. This is a popular direct mail approach: Static “shells” are printed on an offset press and then imprinted using a toner-based device.

The personal touch

If a digital press were a car, it would be something compact and sporty with vanity license plates. Black-and-white toner-based devices have been around for more than 20 years, but high-speed digital color, which includes toner and liquid ink machines, didn't start to blossom until the mid-1990s. Typical applications include test runs, brochures, flyers, direct mail and books. Many digital presses are limited to paper sizes of 11 x 17 or less, and, with speeds ranging from 40 pages per minute (ppm) to 136 ppm, they can't keep pace with their offset counterparts.

Quality is no longer an issue on digital presses, but a few challenges linger. Many toner-based systems produced mixed results when it comes to large areas of uniform color. And if exact PMS matching is a must, the job probably belongs on an offset press. If you are using Pantone colors, ask to see Pantone sheets produced on that digital press, to avoid surprises down the road. On most presses, however, there's no ink, hence no dot gain — a plus for toner output.

Digital presses have the edge when it comes to speedy turnarounds, an advantage that can be further extended with Internet ordering. Pages are sent directly from a computer to the printing press, eliminating platemaking and a host of other makeready steps. There is no waiting for ink to dry and many jobs can be finished inline.

Variable data printing (VDP) is another key digital advantage. With digital printing, every document can be unique. Provided you have the requisite data, you can do everything from simple personalization to complex customization of content, images and so on.

Last chance for gas

As the car manufacturers like to remind us, mileage will vary. Digital printing has low start-up costs and a high cost per unit. Offset printing has high-start up costs but a low cost per unit. But when it comes to selecting the best printing process, there is only one correct choice — the one that works best for you!

Contact: KOB@americanprinter.com.

Special thanks to Frank Romano for his collaboration on the text accompanying the graphic on pages 6-7.

Improving ROI using multimedia

Don't call Cross Media (Dallas) a printer. The $14 million operation has plenty of offset, digital and even screen and flexographic equipment, but putting ink on paper takes a back seat to helping clients deliver content through multiple media sources. Traditional print is combined with electronic communications — this might include digitally printed direct mail pieces that feature personalized URLs (PURLs), e-mail campaigns and even text messaging. Cross Media describes itself as “leveraging technology to help small and mid-sized companies market like the Fortune 500.”

“Our focus is to work with sales and marketing executives to help them reduce costs and increase revenues,” says Jeff Bradford, president of Cross Media. “A good example of that is our work with Ryland Homes. We have reduced their time to market from five or six weeks to one week, using a combination of online ordering, digital, offset and promotional products. Now, we're starting to work with them on automated touch campaigns that combine digital and offset print with e-mail.”

With 42 communities across the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex area, Ryland Homes wanted to consolidate and automate its print collateral ordering and inventory system to move its inventory more quickly, increase referrals, and improve customer satisfaction.

See www.crossmediamanagement.com.

Great expectations

With sheetfed, web and digital presses, Prisma Graphic (Phoenix) can handle a wide range of printing requirements. Chase Granberry, Prisma's e-business development manager, says determining how to print a job starts with a customer consultation. “It's what they want and need as well as their expectations for the end product,” he says. “If they want something aqueous coated, a piece that looks really good, offset is probably the way to go. But if the run is too short for offset, we'll suggest it be printed on our digital press, an HP 5000.”

Although the digital press doesn't have coating capabilities, unlike most digital presses, it uses liquid inks rather than toner. “The output is really comparable to offset,” says Granberry.

A 12 × 18 poster might take five minutes to get on the digital press. “One hundred copies could be done in minutes and 1,000 might only take an hour. With offset, in that hour you'd still be doing makeready and that doesn't include prepress time or making plates and proofs.”

Nothing but Net

But digital presses do have limitations — Granberry cites small type and “extreme” colors as challenges.

Regardless of how a job ultimately is produced, Prisma can help customers use the Internet to manage and print a wide variety of business materials. Prisma's solution, Dokshop.com, “streamlines the entire process,” according to Granberry. “Customers ordering business cards, for example, can go online, enter their contact information and see a proof immediately. You don't have to call someone to get a quote, wait for the quote and so on.”

The Web tool also provides an effective means for tracking and controlling print expenditures while ensuring that corporation presents a uniform appearance in all of its business and marketing materials.

One-stop shop

Currently, 150 companies are using Dokshop.com, ranging from Del Webb/Pulte Homes to Realty Executives International to restaurant chains such as Marie Callendar's Pie Shops. Del Webb Corp. uses the online system to manage digital assets and coordinate orders for collateral marketing materials for its various properties.

Prisma Graphic tailored the online tool to Del Webb Corp.'s specific needs. In addition to facilitating orders for collateral materials, the system automatically alerts users to potential gang-print savings. If one property administrator orders a certain product, other administrators are automatically notified and invited to add their products to order for a gang-print discount. Using this feature, Del Web Corp. saved more than $40,000 in just over 13 months.

“If a client wants a feature added to Dokshop, we can do it,” says Granberry. “We have an in-house developer and we are very flexible.”

See www.prismagraphics.com.