You can define offset printing as a process in which a lithographic stone or metal or paper plate is used to make an inked impression on a rubber blanket that transfers it to the paper being printed, instead of being made directly on the paper.

Offset printing is the best choice when you need large printing jobs. Another advantage of this kind of printers is that there are a variety of mediums onto which you can transfer images. You can use rubber, wood and fabric, besides usual paper to fulfill your printing needs. Also leather and metal are use in offset printing.

You can describe the offset printing in three steps:

• Prepress:

First of all, the document to be printed must be converted to film and "plates." A deliberated amount of light passes through the negatives and expose the printing plate. This produces a chemical reaction that allows an ink-receptive coating to be activated. This is how the image is transferred from the negative to the plate.

This method uses only the four primary colors, which has a separate plate for each one of them.

• Press Run:

The material most commonly use to print is paper. But in offset printing you can think in a lot of different materials to print onto.

These printers work in very high speed and use very large sheets of paper.

Then the ink is distributed to the plates through a series of rollers. The rollers dispersed the ink onto the plates.

The image area of the plate take up ink from the ink rollers and then each plate transfers its image to a rubber blanket that in turn transfers the image to the paper.

Then the paper passes through an oven to avoid smudging.

• Bindery:

This is where the paper is cut and put together in order to obtain the final product. Also pages are putted together, by staples or glue, in this step.

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See also:

- Dallas Printer
- Offset vs. Digital Printing
- Digital and Offset Printing