Offset printing is the most popular kind of printing used these days. The offset printing is so common that almost 40 % of the printing jobs are done by the usage of offset printing. The presence of offset printing is almost felt in every industry. It is used in different fields like education where it is used for printing books, journals and the different types of reading material. Its usage is not limited to the field of printing of books but it is also used in the printing of the outer covers of many goods. This offset printing technique is the one technique that has led to the possibility of one of the most important thing which is used in our every day life i.e.; newspapers.
WORKING OF OFFSET PRINTING
The working of offset printing is quite simple. It has three cylinders which transfer the image on to the substrate. The first cylinder is mounted on to the plate. The image is placed or written on the right side up. The first cylinder is placed with the ink and then the image is shifted on to the second cylinder. The second cylinder has a rubber blanket. As the image which was placed in right side position when transferred to the second cylinder is placed in the inverted position. After the image is being transferred from the second cylinders blanket to the third cylinder or the substrate cylinder, this substrate cylinder is placed below the third cylinder and this cylinder is popularly known as impression cylinder. Thus the image is once again inverted to the right position. One unique characteristic in the offset printing is that the image and non- image areas are on the same level. The method makes the usage of fact that there should not be mixing of oil and water usage on the same surface level. This technique has been adopted from lithography; hence offset printing is also referred to as litho offset printing.
There are two main kind of offset presses:
Sheet based offset Printing Press: In sheet based offset printing, single sheets of paper are fed into the press one by one.
Web based offset printing press: In this method the printing is carried on one single sheet of the paper which is available in the form of large rolls. Thus the difference between the two methods is the variation in the form of paper.
As far as the benefits of offset printing are concerned, they can be easily understood by the scope of its presence.
By: Michael Jordan
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
Michael Jordan is a Copywriter of www.printingimpact.com
He had written many articles in various topics. For more information visit: PRINTING GLOSSARY. Contact him at printingimpactarticle@gmail.com
| 
