User:WiiBoy

Internet Printing

'Internet printing' or 'Internet Printer', is a term used to describe a company based mainly on the internet - who offer printing services through the web.

Predominately these companies offer fixed priced items, based on certain preselected criteria. Some will also offer options to the standard, with a fixed price to be added to the generic original price.

The vast majority of Internet Printers use a method called gang printing, or batch printing - this simply means the printer will print a number of 'jobs' at the same time and on the same sheet. To further explain this I refer you to a Printing Blog I discovered, which explains this perfectly. It also discusses the difference between digital and litho print, and how the 'internet printer' was born. The main copy of this blog excerpt is also detailed below.

So you’ve just started a business, and think you should get some letterheads done to look professional, and maybe some leaflets to promote you new venture – but where do you go?

You could look at printers directly, but they tend to charge a lot of money (especially for smaller quantities). The reason behind this is that when printing Lithographically the main costs are the set up, the printer needs to make plates, wash up the press and cylinders, get the paper ready, and then ‘make ready’.

‘Make ready’ means that they need to run the press for a while, checking the registration (alignment) is correct thus ensuring a crisp print, making sure the inks are running correctly and not too heavy or light (the amount of ink hitting the paper), and all this before they even print 1 sheet of your finished product.

So when you only need a short run, you have the financial impact of the set up to contend with, but when you look at longer runs (more sheets printed) this set up cost is spread over the entire job the unit price reduces. A unit could be per 1000, or any unit you wish to use to gauge the price.

An example of this (and its only an example plucked out of the air) is that if you were to print 5,000 A5 Leaflets the cost could be £275, but if you were to print 10,000 the price would be £375.

EXAMPLE

So for 5,000 the per 1000 cost is (£275 / 5) £55

but for the 10,000 per 1000 cost it is (£375 / 10) £37.5

But when they do start , they do it correctly.

The other option you have is digitally printing, which is a lot better for shorter runs as it has next to no set up costs. With a digital print run the unit cost remains the same through the run as there are no savings to made by longer runs. The problem with digital print is that it can cause complications with running stationery through desktop printers afterwards, for instance if you have letterheads printed and then want to print a letter onto it from your desktop. This is because of the process used during digital printing, and the heat that can be generated during a desktop print run. It can ‘heat’ the ink back up and cause transfer from the page to the printer drum, meaning you not only riun the letterhead but possibly the printer too.

Also with Digital Printing you can not print Pantone Colours (Spot Colours), all digital print is created using 4 colour process, or CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow & Black). You can get a CMYK representation of a spot colour (and they seem to be improving all the time), but it will never be the same as using the correct Pantone ink. Also, if you change suppliers they will not run the job the same way which will cause variation in the colour.

To bridge this gap in the market, so to offer litho print at more competitive prices on shorter runs – some printing businesses have set about printing a lot of peoples jobs up together at the same time on the same big sheet. The benefit of this is that you can ‘share’ the set up costs with the other 7, 8, 10 etc people on the same run. Thus reducing the cost.

The downside is that when you have a job printed purely for you, the printer (minder) in looking 100% at your job ensuring the alignment, colour, images etc all look 100%, whereas if you are on a sheet with other people he will have to the best he can to get them all to look good, which invariably means a compromise on quality. But nevertheless, this a great option for small businesses / individuals who want cheaper print of a good quality.

When ordering print from anyone online, give them a call first and get a ‘feel’ for them, do they sound considered and interested in your enquiry or is it just a numbers game? Ask about the process they use, etc.

Buying print online is a very good way to buy print, and it can work out very cheap. Just be sure to check out the company you decide to you use first.

With todays climate, and the need for having goods produced on a high standard and of excellent value - the internet printer offers a good all round solution.

WiiBoy (talk) 10:38, 23 September 2010 (UTC)