Web printing for magazines, books & catalogs.

How Does Web Printing Benefit Me

In two words, press efficiency. Web printing differs from sheet fed in several ways. First and foremost web printing offers you speed. Speed that not only gets your magazine, catalog or book done quicker, but also cheaper than if on a sheet fed press trying to produce high quantity or high page count runs. Press efficiency equals price efficiency. It is that simple. But there is more than just speed. With web printing you have two paper benefits. The first is that paper comes on rolls which means less work at the mill, and with larger quantities purchased, translating to better pricing for you. Secondly if you mail your printed piece or simply want to save on paper, then web printing allows you to run on thinner grades of paper, as well as lesser grades of paper when required. A sheet fed press runs efficiently downwards to 70# gloss book or 50# offset. It can reasonably run 60# gloss book but not without problems and therefore without savings to you as well. A web printing press can run 32# grade 5 or 27.7# news print which a sheet fed press cannot, thereby saving you on paper costs as well as mailing costs.

Short Run Or Low Page Count

Yes you can! You can run certain jobs that are reasonably short run on a web printing press. When you are book printing and when the page count is high enough, many printers in this country offer quantity runs as low as 500 books on their cold set presses. Heat set web printing presses in this country can run as little as 2,500 books, especially when the page count is high and the demand for light paper grades are there as well. There is also a half web printing machine, that is built for cost effective runs of 6 or 8 page publications and many times more cost effective, depending on the quantity, than the larger full size machines. Not to be left out is the quarter web as well as the Didde press which were built for medium-high runs of four page publications. Believe it or not, most labels of reasonable quantity are run on what are really small web printing machines, as they too use roll stock. This is why small quantities are expensive, but once rolling no other press can compete with a label press.

Large Runs For Books, Magazines Or Catalogs

You will always be best served on a web printing press for all of your longer runs. There is nothing than can touch it for efficiency and thereby lowering your costs to print. There are essentially two types of presses, the cold set, which does not have a heater at the end and can therefore only run uncoated stock which does not require drying at the end of the run as the ink sinks into the paper. This is why coated stock has crisper images and print as the ink sits on top of the paper which brings you to the heat set web printing press. This process uses heaters at the end of the press, so that coated stock can be run and dry efficiently.

Large Runs

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Another feature of these presses is automation. Automation saves time and money and modern presses today with web printing, can change plates, and getting them into full registration within ten minutes. This function on a press used to take one or two hours.

What Type Of Items Run Efficiently

The most typical items run on them are usually magazines, catalogs and books. But let's not forget those little labels that run on the very small presses. Virtually any item that is of a high page count and high quantity of any size can run on a web printing press.

Why Standardization On A The Press

It is very important when web printing is the medium you are using to understand page sizing as well as other limitations. These large presses tend to be a bit anal in nature in that they are built to do a few things well. They vary in the paper roll size that they can accept which is why you see many sizes that are less than the standard letter size. Most modern presses run an 8 3/8 x 10 7/8 inch page size while some drop down, especially the older cold set one's, to 8 x 10 1/8 inches. Note here: the width is always first in web printing as in all other types of presses.

What About Print Quality

Generally speaking the newer heat set web presses used for printing coated stocks will rival any commercial sheet fed press for quality and if the quantity and page count fit web printing, will kill sheet fed on price. However the older, non heat set or cold set presses, have varying degrees of quality. We use high quaility, and well maintained presses for all our work. Sometimes, when price matters, or when producing books, without any screens, one does not need the higher quality press and all that counts is effeciency and price.