Future of Offset Printing
History of printing is a fascinating one. When Gutenberg invented movable types some 600 years ago, he created something magical, a too; to disseminate knowledge. However printing was invented as early as 3500 BC, when the Persian and Mesopotamian civilizations used cylinder seals to certify documents written in clay. Other early forms include block seals, Hammered coinage, pottery imprints, and cloth printing. Woodblock printing on paper originated in China around 200. However, the so-called modern printing press arrived to the Middle East 400 years after Europe. Then between 1769 and 1819 Alois Senefelder succeeded in making a printing form on which the printing elements and free surfaces were in the same plane, thus lithography was borne. Offset still is the most widely used printing technique in the world. It is used for publishing printing, as well package printing, commercial printing and many other applications.
Offset printing technology has been evolved since it was introduced, although in essence it remained the same. It is a simple technique. Lithography printing was a direct printing technique. which means that the printing form and printing medium are in direct contact during the process of printing. In 1904, American W. Rubel constructed an additional rubber cylinder through which the printing ink was indirectly transmitted to the print media. That is why it is called offset printing.
This printing process touches all aspects of our lives to the low price of the print and high quality of printed products it is used in the production of packaging, commercial printing, printing of labels and other printed products.
Today an offset printing press is very sophisticated equipment comprising of several printing and digital quality control devices such as camera, color and registration control devices. Prepress operation also is very advanced. Modern computer to plate machines (CTP) image the aluminum plates using laser beams. The speed and quality of CTP machines have improved drastically.
Future of Offset printing, is a mature technology and its growth is flat. On the other hand, digital printing is enjoying a double-digit growth. But in spite of all, offset technology is still the dominant world printing technology that holds almost half of the world’s consumption of printed applications. According to the analyses of Info Trend’s “2013-2018 Global Production Printing & Copy Marketing Forecast,” the overall digital printing will grow to 500 billion pages printed with digital technologies, but this volume represents a very small share of total printed material worldwide. Of course, digital printing is growing rapidly, but still it is small piece of pie compared to the huge slice covered by offset printing technology.
