Physics and Technology – Technology – Printing Technologies
The performance of today’s printing presses would surely astonish Johannes Gutenberg, who invented printing with movable type in Europe. Modern methods have resulted in affordable printing on a large scale.
Although the rise of digital information and the spread of the Internet has challenged the position of the book in modern culture, paper printing is still a popular information medium. The classical methods still used for printing can be divided into three main groups: raised, flat, and gravure printing. In raised printing, the letters or images carrying the ink to be printed are higher than the surrounding surface, as with the movable type originally used by Gutenberg.
The most important flat printing method is the type seen in books, which are often printed using offset printing techniques. In gravure printing, the image to be printed is represented as indentations in the printing plate. This method is used in lithography and linocuts, and is especially popular for applications such as magazines, newspapers, and other high-volume texts.
Gravure printing offers an excellent color print quality and low per page costs; however, the production of each printing plate is quite expensive.
On-demand publishing
Because the creation of printing plates is relatively complex, traditional book printing requires a minimum run of some thousand copies. For small presses and unknown authors, this often represents a substantial financial risk. Help for these publishers came in the form of “print on demand” (POD) technology, developed in the 1990s.
Using a purely digital process, POD does not require the creation of printing plates, and books are printed only when an order is received. There is another side to the resulting POD boom, however: nearly any text can be published without previous quality screening or editing. Because of this, these publications now have a questionable reputation.
JOHANNES GUTENBERG
Johannes Gensfleisch (1400-1468) also known as Gutenberg, did not event book printing. Books were being produced in China as early as the 11th century and printing processes
using stamps were already familiar in the ancient world.
His innovation lay in introducing units of type that could be quickly rearranged and reused for each page. This transformed the book into a product that could be duplicated many times. The spread of the Bible—especially in Martin Luther’s translation— led to far-reaching changes in European culture and society.
MASS-MARKET PRINTING
Many innovations have led to mod ern mass-printing technologies, including the invention of the steam-powered press (1810) and the rotary press (1845). Today, the manufacture of printing machines is a prominent branch of industry.
The world leader in offset printing press production is the German company Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG, with a market share of 40 percent. The market segment for consumer computer printers enjoys high sales figures; however, these printers are not suitable for mass-market printing.