2. What is Print Media? Print media is the printed version of telling the news, primarily through newspapers and magazines. Before the invention and widespread use of printing presses, printed materials had to be written by hand.

3. A Brief History of Printing Around the year 932, Chinese printers adapted wood blocks, which had been used to print illustrations and small amounts of text, and started producing popular books more easily. Each page of text was one block that could be used repeatedly to make the books.

4. Invention of the Printing Press Printing press, machine by which text and images are transferred to paper or other media by means of ink. Although movable type, as well as paper, first appeared in China, it was in Europe that printing first became mechanized. The earliest mention of a printing press is in a lawsuit in Strasbourg in 1439 revealing construction of a press for Johannes Gutenberg and his associates.

5. The earliest dated printed book known is "Diamond Sutra," printed in China in 868 CE. However, it is suspected that book printing may have occurred long before this date Back then, printing was limited in the number of editions made and nearly exclusively decorative, used for pictures and designs. The material to be printed was carved into wood, stone, and metal, rolled with ink or paint, and transferred by pressure to parchment or vellum. Books were hand copied mostly by members of religious orders. In 1452, Johannes Gutenberg--a German blacksmith craftsman, goldsmith, printer, and inventor--printed copies of the Bible on the Gutenberg press, an innovative printing press machine that used movable type. It remained the standard until the 20th century. Johannes Gutenberg.

6. There are a wide variety of technologies that are used to print stuff. The main industrial printing processes are: Flatbed Rotary Press Offset lithography Flexography Digital printing: inkjet & xerography Gravure Screen printing

7. Flatbed Printing

8. Lithography Lithography (from Ancient Greek λίθος, lithos, meaning 'stone', and γράφειν, graphein, meaning 'to write') is a method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by German author and actor Alois Senefelder as a cheap method of publishing theatrical works. Lithography can be used to print text or artwork onto paper or other suitable material

9. Principle of lithography……… Lithography refers to a lithograph print that is made from an image which has been applied to a flat surface. It is a method of printing based on the principle that oil and water do not mix. Printing is done from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a grained surface; using oil-based inks. The artist works on a separate stone or plate for each colour. Traditionally this flat surface was a specially prepared limestone, but today grained aluminium printing plates and the original stones are used. An image is drawn, painted or photographically applied the stone or plate using a greasy medium. The image will repel water and accept ink. The inks are oil based and should be lightfast.

10. Rotary printing presses A rotary printing press is a printing press in which the images to be printed are curved around a cylinder. Printing can be done on a large number of substrates, including paper, cardboard, and plastic. Substrates can be sheet feed or unwound on a continuous roll through the press to be printed and further modified if required (e.g. die cut, overprint varnished, embossed). Printing presses that use continuous rolls are sometimes referred to as "web presses There are three main types of rotary presses; offset (including web offset), rotogravure, and flexo (short for flexography). Although the three types use cylinders to print, they vary in their method.

11. Offset technology………. 1875 Offset Printing is great for: business cards, letterhead, catalogs, books/booklets, business forms, flyers, brochures, calendars, invitations and so much more. Offset printing offers the best price per piece in the printing industry. It is also the highest quality printing process in the industry. The process produces prints with rich, smooth solids without the streaking found in lesser quality prints. Actual inks are used, not toner. The look and feel of any offset product comes across as more professional.

12. How It Works? Offset printing is a commonly used printing technique where an inked image is transferred (or “offset”) from a plate to a rubber blanket, then to paper. The offset process is a lithographic process. Lithoghraphy is a process based on the repulsion of oil and water. An image that is offset printed is separated into its fundamental colors. (This example is assuming a 4 color job, ie. a brochure with text and images. There are times when there is only one or two colors or even six or eight.)

13. Offset………… A plate is made up of areas that are receptive to grease and areas that are receptive to water. The areas receptive to grease hold onto the ink while the other areas attract water and repel the ink. These plates are then put on to a press. From the ink fountains, the press pulls in the ink and puts it onto the plate. The press applies great pressure to the plate and the ink imprints the image from the plate onto a rubber blanket. The image is then pressed onto the paper off the blanket to make a print. When these four colors are printed onto each other the image comes back together and looks the way it did in in the inital PDF. All this happens really fast and many impressions can be made from one set of plates. It is a very efficient process and lends itself very well to long runs over a long period of time.

14. Offset In offset lithography a printing plate, which is most often made from aluminum, contains an image of the content that needs to be printed. When the plate is inked, only this image part holds ink. That inked image is subsequently transferred (or offset) from the plate to a rubber blanket and then to the printing surface. T he process can be used to print on paper, cardboard, plastic or other materials, but these have to have a flat surface. Below is a picture of a 4 color sheet fed printing press. At the far end is the intake where individual sheets of paper are automatically fed into the press. The 4 towers or printing units each print one color, typically black get printed first, followed by cyan, magenta and yellow. The stack of printed sheets is visible on the front of the machine, underneath the press console & monitor which the press operator uses to control the press.

15. The History of Offset Printing Goes Back to the Eighteenth Century The history of offset printing starts in 1798, when a Munich resident named Alois Senefelder started using stones to reproduce images that were much better than any of the other methods available at the time.Alois Senefelder Alois used stones that were sketched with a substance that was greasy, which were then rubbed with a fountain solution. The first offset prints took some time and effort to produce. Senefelder’s offset printing discovery happened quite by accident. While he was polishing a stone slab, his mother requested that he write a bill for a worker. Having nothing to write on he wrote the bill on the stone. He then thought of applying acid to the stone where he had written. After a few minutes, the unwritten section of the stone became slightly eaten away, leaving the writing elevated.

16. What Changes Have Occurred Over the Years ? Through the history of offset printing many changes have occurred. Rocks were transformed into plates, and today special rubber blankets streamline the process and make it easier to get picture perfect images. Presses are run by electricity instead of steam today, and the technique has been improved repeatedly through the last century.

17. Pros and Cons of Offset Printing. Pro: Ideal for large or commercial-scale print runs with a need for consistency. Offset produces a high image quality that can be produced on a wide range of printing surfaces including paper, wood, cloth, leather, texturized paper, and plastic. Another advantage of offset printing is that the cost goes down as the quantity goes up. Once an offset printing job is set up for production, it can continuously produce without any worry. Offset printing makes it easy to get the exact image and product you are seeking to get. It does not distort any part of the product, creating quality work every time. Con: High turnover times associated with complicated set-up. Edits and proofing are time-consuming and costly. Large paper volume and chemicals used in printing result in a high environmental impact

18. A Timeline of Printing 618-906: T’ang Dynasty - The first printing is performed in China, using ink on carved wooden blocks; multiple transfers of an image to paper begins. 868: "Diamond Sutra" is printed. 1241: Koreans print books using movable type. 1300: The first use of wooden type in China begins. 1309: Europeans first make paper. However, the Chinese and Egyptians had started making paper in previous centuries.paper 1338: The first paper mill opened in France. 1390: The first paper mill opened in Germany. 1392: Foundries that can produce bronze type are opened in Korea. 1423: Block printing is used to print books in Europe. 1452: Metal plates are first used in printing in Europe. Johannes Gutenberg begins printing the Bible, which he finishes in 1456. 1457: The first color printing is produced by Fust and Schoeffer. 1465: Drypoint engravings are invented by Germans. 1476: William Caxton begins using a Gutenberg printing press in England. 1477: Intaglio is first used for book illustration for Flemish book "Il Monte Sancto di Dio."