Digital Printing Workflow in Newspapers (Below)

When selecting a digital chemical process for CTP, the newspaper office should consider the following points.

1) Is it convenient to use? Easy-to-use processes can increase productivity without the need for complex training.

2) Do you need soft proofing or hard proofing? Do you need color proofing? Or does it only need layout proofing or content proofing?

3) Is it possible to easily output the plate repeatedly? Do you need to re-RIP every file?

4) Is the newspaper's communication infrastructure capable?

5) Is there time to receive data? Have you tested it?

6) Newspaper printing companies often use plates of different sizes and specifications? If so, can the output order of the printing plates be controlled and the time wasted due to loading and unloading plates of different sizes?

7) Is there enough time to output the same printing plate with different resolution?

8) Are all the changing factors foreseen in advance? Is it necessary to rely on manual operations to achieve rotation, horizontal reversal, etc. in production?

9) Do you use a contract printing factory? Do they need special resolution or format? Do they already own CTP? Do you need to consider compatibility issues?

10) When a CTP fails, can the system detect the failure and use a replacement solution?

11) Do you need to keep CTF as a backup?

12) Is the monitoring of the production process and quality throughout the system?

13) Did the system output the plate earlier than the scheduled time?

14) The same digital file can output several versions?

Taking into account the above factors helps to select the most appropriate digital workflow, so that the newspaper production is more smooth.

Workflow recovery point

The use of CTP can bring about a reduction in material costs and time savings. If you do not carefully select the right workflow, the above advantages may be lost. Therefore, be sure to plan everything before the CTP equipment arrives.

The biggest point of investment recovery comes from automation, automation, people do not have to waste time waiting for documents, and then decide what to do next. The automation of production can reduce the operator, and the saved human resources can do other things. In addition, the pre-planned production can also be used to recover the investment as soon as possible, which can reduce errors and reduce waste. Soft proofing saves material, but there must also be checkpoints before the plates are exported. Automatic repetitive printing of plates can shorten the preparation time for printing. In particular, the use of CIP3 can shorten the tuning time.

About PDF and JDF

As long as the software can generate the required color or black-and-white pages with punctured, bent marks, each of the solutions described in this article can be completed in TIFF, Postscript or PDF format. When a newspaper office wants to upgrade its workflow, it is advisable to consider the PDF process. Because PDF has many advantages, not only the transmission time is shorter, but also the cross-platform compatibility is stronger. And a PDF file can be RIP at any desired resolution, which is an attractive solution. It is believed that the PDF process will become the newspaper's future development direction.

JDF is yet another standard process that people are talking about now, and the JDF workflow is also preparing for the application in newspaper printing houses.

Replace RIP

Why replace the RIP that is not bad? Many companies' practice is to introduce CTP first, and then gradually add or update equipment to increase the value obtained from CTP. RIP is a good way to PDF, can make production faster, more efficient, and can avoid many problems. RIP is also a solution for implementing FM network printing. If a newspaper printing company is interested in doing commercial printing in addition to the newspaper, it is very important to adopt a FM network and a better workflow.

To be on the safe side, the newspaper should consider having more than one RIP. Because of the backup RIP, you can balance production. Perhaps RIP is not the first newspaper company needs to be replaced, but if a good RIP, it can really speed up the investment recovery.

Bai Qing compiled
Source: "Digital Printing"