Tag Archives: Printing

Irwin Hodson Press Announces Their Climate Neutral Printing Certification

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For immediate release

Portland, 1st of May, 2009

Irwin Hodson Press Announces Their Climate Neutral Printing Certification.
How does it feel to print climate neutrally? Innovative and responsible

Irwin Hodson Press can now offer its clients climate neutral print products. Hereby, all CO2-emissions evolving in the course of a print job will be calculated and neutralized by emission certificates from acknowledged climate protection projects. For Irwin Hodson Press, the possibility to print climate neutrally was yet another step in a broad sustainability strategy. Thereby the focus will continue to be on additional long-term development of the company’s internal environment philosophy and the diminution of the impacts on the climate.

From the carbon footprint to a climate neutral print product
Due to a large sense of responsibility, it is important for Irwin Hodson Press to keep the entry of environmentally relevant greenhouse gases as low as possible. In a printing plant CO2-emissions evolve in the course of the usage of energy, transports, paper, inks, coatings and other factors. The ClimatePartner California Inc. has calculated all the emerging CO2-emissions for the whole company [carbon footprint] and presents guidance for the reduction of emissions by means of the results. With an individualized emission calculator Irwin Hodson Press can report to their client the amount of emissions produced per print project. As an additional service, the emissions can be neutralized by investing in high quality emission-reduction-certificates from acknowledged climate protection projects.  Therefore every brochure, catalog, poster, etc can be printed climate neutrally. Continue reading →

Metaprinter Tries Out Printcasting

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What is Printcasting?  From their site:

Printcasting is a first of its kind online tool that assists users in dynamically creating customized newspapers and magazines comprised of information gathered from local news sources such as blogs, newsletters, news organizations, user content, and other Contributors.  Creating your own publication is as simple as adding the elements you want included in your publication through the easy to use Printcasting.com interface.  Without having to hire a team of editors, graphic artists, or authors you will be able to create your own, professional publication for distribution.

Publishers will also be able to allow Advertisers to place targeted advertisements in their publications and, in the future, receive a portion of revenue generated from those advertisements.  Publications created by the user may then be available for print, download, and distribution to Subscribers.

I wrote about the years-ago-created RSS to print application FeedJournal and it’s potential for a digital newspaper application last year, so Printcasting’s claim to be the “first of its kind” in this realm isn’t necessarily true, what is unique though is their attempt to monetize the resulting product with a simple ad creation tool (among other things).

Printcasting is a Knight News Challenge winner and their website is inviting so I decided to give it a try for Metaprinter.  I want to emphasize that the Printcasting site was in open Beta / preview mode when I did this so don’t judge too harshly.

Step 1. Definitely watch this instructional video before doing anything. Continue reading →

2009 Print Quality Contest Winners | America East

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2009 Print Quality Contest Winners

Circulation Under 25,000:
First place – The Coast Star, Manasquan NJ | owned by starnewsgroup
Second Place – The Ocean Star, Manasquan NJ | owned by starnewsgroup
Third Place – The News-Item, Shamokin PA | owned by timesshamrockcommunications

Circulation 25,000-50,000:
First place – The Village Daily Sun, Villages FL | owned by The Villages Media Group
Second Place – The Times Leader, Wilkes-Barre PA | owned by The Wilkes-Barre Publishing Company
Third Place – Muskegon Chronicle, Muskegon MI | owned by Advance Publications

Circulation 50,000-100,000:
First place – The Kalamazoo Gazette, Kalamazoo MI | owned by Advance Publications
Second Place – The Times-Tribune, Scranton PA | owned by Times-Shamrock Communications
Third Place – Rockford Register Star, Rockford IL | owned by GateHouse Media, Inc.

Circulation Over 100,000:
First place – The Record, Rockaway NJ | owned by North Jersey Media Group
Second Place – The Grand Rapids Press, Grand Rapids, MI | owned by Advance Publications
Third Place – The Wall Street Journal, South Brunswick NJ | owned by News Corp.

Best of Show:

The Kalamazoo Gazette, Kalamazoo MI | owned by Advance Publications

Calligraphy to Press! (CTP) …and you thought setting type was tough?!

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From ilovetypography.com on Vimeo.

“The Musalman is probably the last handwritten newspaper in the world and has been operational since 1927. Here is their story”.  A film by by Premjit Ramachandran.  Shows these artisans laying out newspaper pages BY HAND, I thought a linotype machine was tough!.  Clicking the images will take you to the videos.

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Effect of Floating Roller on Reel Tension & Paster Failures – Newspaper Printing

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Many paster failures (or splice failures as some say) are the result of trauma to the running web during the paste cycle.  For an offset newspaper printing press the average paster failure, because of downtime and wasted consumables, costs ~$700 per incident.  This can represent a staggering amount of wasted money to pressrooms incapable of resolving their paster failures. Conversely, this can represent a large cost savings if this article resolves your problem. Yay metaprinter!

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Troubleshooting & Resolving Newspaper Web Wrinkles

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Perhaps it is because we are such tactile workers that not much information appears online to help newspaper printers or pressroom workers. It’s pretty amazing, the lack on information online, considering much less obscure trades are written about with depth and aplomb.   In an effort to change that, I will be posting some of the more common newspaper printing problems and their solutions here on metaprinter. If there is something you would like me to cover please send an email.

This post covers troubleshooting and resolving newspaper web wrinkles. Wrinkles are a major cause of waste, delay, and customer complaints. I have created two powerpoint slides to highlight the differences. First, there are two types of web that can be found on a newspaper web.

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Hewlett Packard Inkjet Web Press For Newspapers

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I blog about innovation within the newspaper industry here at metaprinter and this is truly an innovation. At Drupa 2008 Hewlett Packard unveiled a new 36.5-inch wide inkjet web press. The press is capable of running 400 feet per minute and utilizing various impositions executing jobs ranging from broadsheet newspaper to standard size letter.

HP inkjet web press

What can be done with such a piece of equipment you might ask? Well, Editor & Publisher summed it up nicely as such:

“Possibilities include: newspaper products other than the core daily edition; moving late-breaking news out from a national paper’s newsroom and page-assembly hub to remote print sites to augment the main print runs; production of larger papers’ local sections at distribution centers rather than trucking them from central plants, reducing their cost, stretching their deadlines and creating more advertising opportunities at lower price; production of the local paper with a national or nearby metro daily, or the weekly addition of a certain section of the larger paper to the local paper for certain subscribers.”   Editor&Publisher

To see and hear the press running check out this YouTube video here and below:

No quiet room needed for this bad boy and a far stretch from the presses I am used to working on.

TKS newspaper offset web press

Then again, this type of equipment can print 70k to 90k impressions per hour, which is 12 webs at roughly 2,100 to 2,700 feet per minute given a 22″ cutoff. This is 60 times faster than the HP.

Just for fun lets say you are printing a 96-page Black Friday newspaper on the TKS press above. You would need 12 webs running at 70k impressions per hour for 5 hours to print 350,000 newspapers.The same job on the HP would require 24 HP Inkjet Web Presses running 25 hours! or 120 HP Inkjet Web Presses running 5 hours! Moore’s Law, if it applies here loosely, suggests that the HP will be able to print a complete newspaper as fast as the offset web presses in 12 years. See you in 2020.

RELATED:

Metaprinter Offers a New, Innovative, Digital Newspaper Business Model – Infinite Zoning
This model uses the HP Inkjet Web Press to print infinitely customizable newspaper inserts. In late 2008 this idea was pitched to The Washington Post and Tribune, however they felt going to a pure online play was more in-line with their long term goals.

UPDATE:

This story got picked up by the Newspaper Association of America’s magazine Presstime. Click to read the article. Thanks for the heads-up Pete!

March 23, 2009 Océ aims new digital press squarely at newspapers http://tinyurl.com/d3c7ap

International Newspaper Group Conference 2007

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Held in Kansas City, Missouri, the 2007 ING Annual Conference was the first ING event I have attended. Let me start off by saying that I was pleasantly surprised by the smooth program, the issues discussed, the tour of the Kansas City Star plant, and the turnout from vendors and publishing companies. Due to time constraints I was only able to attend Wednesday September 19th. Much happened on this day though, so all was not lost. I’ll lead you through the program as it occurred on Wednesday. I am paraphrasing so don’t assume the following is verbatim.

The Conference opens and quickly gets down to business. On Wednesday morning the topic of discussion was “publishing challenges in Kansas City (Kansas City Star)”.

President and Publisher Mac Tully begins with the market challenges and trends emphasizing that newspapers have a very difficult future ahead but that we are not as bad off as television (I guess that is a positive). In their efforts to embrace change within the newspaper industry Mr. Tully went on to mention the redesign of the newspaper and the completion of their new 199 million dollar printing plant. He also expressed his opinion that newspapers are factual and fair media channels which serve as “watchdogs” for their community. He also emphasized the idea that “total readership” and not circulation should define their reach, a reach he stated which is bigger than that of Television (in their geographic area I am assuming). It was a feel good speach which was met with applause.

Peter Ricker VP Advertising focused his presentation on ROI, ROP advertising, simplifying the advertising rates and procedures, and the increase in color capacity at the new plant.

C. Christian VP Circulation explained how the paper handled the redesign and the completion of their new printing facility. Both of these projects are huge undertakings and for them to occur and come on line on the same day is an amazing feat of planning and teamwork. The campaign theme was “Brighter, Bolder, Better” and it was used to emphasize the increase in color capacity, the redesign, and the new plant. Starting in March of 2006 the KC Star first told its employees, and then conducted TV and radio interviews, followed by speaking engagements. These continued along with heavy print and online promotions until June of 2006 when the new paper was printed on the new presses. The total print readership is now higher than that of 1999-2000 levels.

Randy Waters VP Production spoke about the new plant and equipment. Expansion and retooling were not feasible construction from May 12, 2003 to June 2006. Some of the highlights: 4 KBA Commander presses consisting of 9 towers and 10 reel stands. 48″ web with 21.5″ cut-off. 80 pages straight 40 process color (48 pc on a 72 page run). 6 folders and 3 stitchers. (I thought this was a great feature allowing saddle stitching at press speed, think of the possibilities, TV guide, special sections, bringing advertising back from commercial shops, etc…) The paper handling was equally impressive. Using computer controlled cranes and conveyors; a human never touches the rolls of paper from the time they are delivered minimizing damage, error, and variation.

Break………….

When we returned the subject moved to photo toning. The following concepts and software programs were presented and discussed: Automated preflight and photo toning, OneVision’s Asura and InkSave, Morris DigitalWorks BluMunkee, and Agfa’s IntelliTune.

I was especially interested in the OneVision software. As the company states on their website, “PlugINKSAVEin is a Plugin for Asura and Asura Pro which has the ability to reduce a significant amount of ink”. It works by taking customers’ images and re-separates them to boost black ink usage and conserve expensive CMY inks. The software was reported to save 6 to 24% in ink usage. Imagine that your ink costs are 2million dollars a year, assuming a conservative 10% reduction in ink usage, one could save $200,000! Sounds like a no brainer to me. This could not have been timelier as Flint Ink and others have announced they are raising ink prices.

The last few hours at the conference was spent discussing the ING internship program and predictive maintenance but I was in and out for meetings so I won’t go into detail here. The ING website should have powerpoints of the presentations up soon.

Lastly, and the part I was most looking forward to, we headed to the new Kansas City Star newspaper printing plant. The plant utilizes four KBA Commander presses consisting of 9 towers and 10 reel stands each operating up to 80 IPH. Although quite tall, the presses were very nice and quiet. The glass walls of the plant were nice too, as most printing presses are housed in buildings with no windows. I was most impressed with two features of the plant. One, the folders have a saddle stitcher enabling the press to produce a bound tabloid format publication at press speed. Two, the paper roll storage, delivery, and loading is completely automated leaving little room for human error.

Looking to the future I wish the Kansas City Star my best and thank them for taking us on a tour. I hope that their expanded capabilities in the new plant enhance the publication and its reach into the community.

How is a newspaper printed?

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I was stuck in NY PENN station waiting for my train and I struck up a conversation with the business man sitting next to me. We got around to talking about what we do for a living and when I told him I print newspapers he became quite interested in the whole process. It is at this point I realized most people have no idea how their newspaper is printed. So here I will attempt to tell and show you.

Most newspapers are printed on non-heatset offset web presses. These are large presses taking up a few hundred feet in length and usually two or three stories high. Here is a press by TKS. This is a press from MAN ROLAND. Here is another from GOSS.

Let’s begin by following the paper as it transforms from large 1800 lb. rolls to a completed newspaper. The newsprint rolls begin their transformation in a reel stand at the base of a printing unit. In this picture you can clearly see one roll of paper in a reel stand. There are usually two or three rolls of newsprint in one reel stand and one stand at the bottom of each printing unit. The TKS printing press above has ten printing units. The paper is pulled through the press and off the roll while the press is running as the roll expires it is pasted to the incoming roll and a new roll is now loaded into the reel stand. This is all done while the press is running so that it does not have to be shut down for more paper.

The paper travels out of the basement or reel room and through the printing unit. This can either be a mono (or black) unit or a color unit. The mono units are simple and print blanket to blanket applying black text to both sides of the newsprint at the same time. Color units are more complex. Most color sequences on offset litho printing will be CMYK although KCMY can also be used. The color can be printed back to back in a Tower configuration or on a satellite using a Common impression cylinder or CIC.

After the ink has been applied, slitters (circular cutting knives), angle bars, and former pans are used to position sheets in certain locations and to create the sections of the newspaper. Here is a great head on photo of a former pan. You can see how as the paper travels down, it gets folded in half (along the spine on a broadsheet, along the top and cut on a tabloid). Newspaper presses have 2 to 4 former pans and can create 2 to 8 sections with these.

Remember, the sheets are still long continuous sheets of newsprint at this point. But they are folded neatly into their sections in the proper order. The last step is for the paper to continue being pulled into the rotating folder and cut at exactly the correct moment. The jagged edge you see at the top and bottom of your newspaper is this cut. Moments after being cut a Tucker Blade forces the paper into a set of Folding Rollers and out of the folder onto a conveyor delivery system off to the mail room for packaging. That last trip through the Folding Rollers creates the fold everyone sees when the paper is sitting on the news stand.

TA DA! you now know (very crudely) how a newspaper is created on an offset lithographic press. If anyone would like clarifications on anything please email me or leave a comment.

Newspaper offset web press