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A printing press is a manufacturing unit. Various processes are involved from placing a print order to delivery of the final product. When you place an order for printing, it first goes to Design Department for designing the job. In the case of an already designed job, it goes directly to Prepress Department for making positives (films). These positives are exposed to a metal/polyester plate and these plates are loaded to the offset machine. By then, the paper will be kept ready for printing after cutting to the required size of the job. Printing requires a number of make-ready runs and setting up. After printing, the printed material is moved to Binding Department for bindery. Depending on the job, this goes through a number of processes like collating, pinning, punching, folding, die cutting, numbering, lamination etc. Finally, after a finishing cut, the printed material goes to Packing and Forwarding Department for delivery.

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What time it takes to get my job done?

The time it takes to finish a job depends on the intricacies involved. It varies from 1 day to a few weeks in the case of quantity jobs.

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What is the minimum and maximum number of copies you can print?

There is no minimum or maximum numbers. Depending on the job the printer will be taking 100 to 500 print runs to get the correct output. Meaning, to print 1 copy or 100,000 copies takes the same make-ready effort. For that reason, printing less than 500 copies in offset will not be economical. The larger the quantity the lower the unit cost.

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What all jobs you undertake? Can you name some of them?

We undertake almost all types of offset jobs. For eg. Flyers, Posters, Brochures, Point of Sale (POS) materials, Direct Mailers, Folders, Calendars and other marketing materials. We also do printing of stationeries like letterheads, business cards, invoices, vouchers etc.

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Why can’t I use images taken from web sites?

There are two reasons for you can’t use them.

1.Images from website are of very low resolution with which a good offset print production is not possible.

2.Copyright laws protect most of the images used. So unauthorized copying may lead to legal penalties.

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Why can’t I use images scanned from other brochures, magazines etc.?

Why this fuss about Resolution? What is it? How will I know whether my image has got enough resolution?

Resolution decides the quality of images. It means the amount of information available in an unit area. Usually it is measured in dots per square inch (dpi). A 72 dpi image has 72 dots (pixels) in a square inch, defining that area of the picture. Likewise a 300 dpi image has 300 dots per square inch. For web 72 dpi image will be justified. But for printing we need 300 dpi (high resolution) for good results. If we use a low-resolution image for printing the output will be a jaggered and blurred picture. To know whether your image has got enough resolution you have to open it in professional softwares like Adobe Photoshop or Corel PhotoPaint and look for resolution. If you don’t have these softwares, just by checking the file size you will have an understanding of what kind of image it is. For example, a file size of 1kb to 100kb is not for printing. This is just an indication. Not a rule.

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Will the photos taken by my Digital Camera print fine?

Its difficult to tell without seeing the image. There are a range of digital cameras, at different prices and qualities, with multiple options on capturing pictures. It’s difficult to say yes or no. Digital cameras usually have a resolution of 72dpi. As we need a resolution of 300 dpi for printing, this means the pictures taken by digital camera are not good enough for print. This problem is solved by the higher size of the image. A 72 dpi photograph taken by a digital camera can be reproduced without loosing quality at a size of 4 times lesser than the original image size. For eg. If a digital photograph has a size of 4cms x 4cms, this image can be reproduced at a size of 1cm x 1cm without loosing details.

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What is JPEG, PDF files?

JPEG (Joint Photographers Experts Group) is a file compression algorithm used for image compression. JPEG is so popularly known and used because it’s widely supported and uses the best compression algorithm. For images transferred through Internet, JPEG is the best way. But if images is copeid to a CD or Zip and get transferred, its better to keep the original format (TIFF, EPS, PSD etc) since JPEG compression is a lossy compression (means some data will be discarded while compressing).

PDF (Portable Document Format) is a file format by Adobe. This file format helps to view, partially edit files originally made in almost any designing / word processing software. A PDF file can be viewed using Acrobat Reader which is freely available free with almost all installation CD or can be downloaded from Adobe^® website at www.adobe.com. We use this program for digital proofs we sent across via email and we recommend you to have one installed in your system.

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What programme should I use to design my brochure?

Our system at present support the following programs. Illustrator, Freehand, CorelDraw, QuarkXpress, InDesign, Photoshop, PhotoPaint etc. Its highly recommended to do your artwork in one of these programs as its widely supported. Please note that Photoshop and Photopaint are Image editing software and we do not advise to use it for text and graphics.

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Can I use MS Office programmes to design a flyer?

Yes. But not suggested. MS Office is designed for, as the name stands for, office utilities. For a low profile flyer it may be OK, but definitely for a book or magazine its not.

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How should I prepare my file for printing?

There are lots of factors to be checked before sending a file for printing. In addition to usual spell check, grammar check etc., you have to make bleed, check the colors, check images for resolution and most importantly convert all RGB colors to CMYK. While sending the files for printing, make sure you have copied all the files required for output. This includes images, fonts etc.

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Can you use the files that I send through e-mail?

Definitely yes. There is no difference between a file copied to a floppy and sent and an email attachment.

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How will I copy the files from my system and sent to you?

You can say “Save as..” and select the drive (A: in the case of floppy or respective drive in other cases) or use Windows Explorer to drag and drop the files. As storage devices you can use regular (3.5) floppy disks and Zip disks or CDs for bigger files. You can also use programs like WinZip to compress the files.

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What will you require to process my job?

Place an order, give the exact specification of your job like the number of colors, paper to be used and finishing. Do not forget to mention your special requirements like lamination, numbering, special color printing, spot UV etc., as well.

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