Folding carton flexographic printing industry (prepress)

As all carton printers know, the market for folding carton printing has been dimming in the past few years. The customer's demand for printing quality is getting higher and higher, and at the same time, the price is becoming increasingly pressing. As a result, some printing companies were forced to fade out, leaving more printers to feel the pressure of survival.

Not all news is bad. Many printers have found a good solution to the difficulty - using a web flex print line to print folding cartons. Modern flexible printing can be comparable to offset printing in terms of quality. The quality of most carton products can be accepted by users. With a web printing production line, the process of printing most cartons can be completed at one time, which, even under very difficult circumstances, can bring enormous economic benefits to the adopters.

This article tries to give a simple introduction to friends who are not familiar with the basic principles of flexible printing for folding cartons. Some analysis is made on the similarities and differences between offset printing and the process.

One, prepress

1) Graphic Manuscript

Like offset printing, originals for flexo printing are also in digital format. The hardware and software used in offset printing are also used in flexo printing. The difference is that the two methods for processing original documents are different. For example, because of the high density of flexo dots, the color separation process is different. Flexo printing has a wider range of application in color separation because the flexibility of the flexo printer is much more than that of an offset press. Both thick and thin lines, flexo printing can be better color combination, higher density and better color reproduction.

2) Film/Traditional Plate Making

Many printing and prepress workshops still use traditional films and plates in large quantities. Although digital platesetters have their own advantages in terms of process and print quality, traditional plates will continue to be used for quite some time. The quality of the film that is to be used depends on the quality of the film produced with the modified file. The film is used to make a photographic printing plate. The plate is washed, dried and processed to be mounted on a plate cylinder. The plate cylinder is repeatedly printed. Traditional printing plates have advantages for printing specialized jobs.

3) Digital Media

Digital platemaking is the latest technology and has many advantages over traditional plate making. Eliminating film is the key. More importantly, the improved printing characteristics (with better dot structure) can improve the quality of flexo printing to a new level, and can even compete with the traditional offset printing market. The digital media is imaged with a laser head, exposed, rinsed, and processed for printing on a plate cylinder.

4) Prepress materials supply and interior plate making processes

Like offset printing, flexographic prepress material can be produced in-house or purchased from a dedicated prepress material supplier. To control costs and shorten the printing cycle, more and more companies are processing at least some of their processes in their own workshops. The prevailing method is to ask a professional prepress production company to process the manuscript file, and then send the file to the plate maker for plate making. It is also common that many parts have their own finish in the workshop, and those difficult jobs are called to professional companies. Their experience in this area is rich.