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 Technical 
 

Digital printing

 finishing technologies making digitally printed documents professional
Politis, Anastasios
 
 Anastasios  Politis
 Research Scientist
 Greece
Nikea
Piraeus
Politis Research
Politis Research,  38, Peristaseos str.
Nikea  Piraeus  GR-18450 Greece
Phone: +30944323468 Fax: +301 4904500 email: politisresearch@techlink.gr
 Biography
 Anastasios Politis - Anastasios Politis born on October 15th 1955, is a graduated Dipl. Eng. in Graphic Arts Technology (BA-Athens TEI) and holds a Msc degree in Interactive Multimedia (University of Wesminster, UK). He holds the position of Assistant Professor at the Dept of Graphic Arts Technology, Athens Technological Educational Institute, where he works since 1981. Since September 1999, he is working on his doctoral dissertation as a research scientist at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) Stockholm Sweden.
 Anastasios Politis is a research scientist with 25 years of experience in concept, development and implementation of projects in a wide range of topics within the Graphic Arts and Media industry in Greece and Europe. He is owner of the research Institute «POLITIS RESEARCH» located in Nikea, Piraeus, Greece, with main activities in research on strategic analysis and documentation of new technologies, education and training, investments and future structure of the Graphic Arts, Media and packaging sector in Europe.
 He has more than 25 years of experience in education, training, project and research within the Greek and European Graphic Arts and Media sector. He is author of 4 books and over 100 articles and studies.
 Abstract
 This presentation will discuss the importance of finishing technologies that are used for the digitally printed documents.
 The increased use of digital printing systems has caused the necessity for the development of new finishing and binding systems for the documents that are digitally printed. The finishing systems that have been developed for this purpose, have their own specific characteristics that can be described as follows:
 The manufacturing of the systems is based on the factor that the documents have smaller dimensions than traditionally printed sheets.
 The production is done under the consideration of processing loose sheets of paper rather, than folded signatures.
 There is the necessity for manufacturing finishing systems where saddle stitching, perfect binding and trimming must be combined.
 There is the requirement for quality binding in comparison with traditional finishing systems.
 Quite important issue on finishing technologies for digital printing systems is the requirement for digitally printed documents to be as good, look as «professional» and function as the traditionally finished ones.
 

Digital printing

 Early at the beginning of the last decade, the digital printing was born. Within the years that followed, up to today, digital printing turned to be the most significant technology for printed media production .
 The term is used today in order to describe the systems and equipment that produce printed or «printed» sheets or rolles of paper (and other substrates) at one or both sides, by using different technologies of imaging with one or more colours.
 Furthermore, the term «digital printing» is used in order to define the printing-imaging processes where the film and/or plate making processes are eliminated and where printing or imaging takes part exactly after the pre-press production process. In comparison with the traditional printing processes Digital Printing can be presented at the that follows:
 
Comparison of processes
 But, as we talk about printing, we deal with printed media, and it means that printing systems or machines produce image on paper or other substrate, no matter of the technology or process used (traditional or digital).
 It is natural and of course necessary, that printed sheets or roles need to be further processed in order to receive final printed documents that can be delivered to the end customer.
 This post-press production is done by a wide range of finishing technologies, systems and machines that have been developed and established for this purpose.
 The first conclusions to this approach on digital printing is that digitally printed documents need also to be finished and digitally printed documents are also products on paper (or other substrate).
 
Digitally printed documents.
 A variety of leaflets, brochures, catalogues and books (courtesy of c.p. bourg inc. New Bedford, MA, USA)
 

Digital printing and its market position

 Digital Printing Technology, after the first presentations (PRINT, IMPRINTA, TPG) was also one of the main technological innovations at DRUPA '95, Imprinta 97 IPEX 98 and CEBIT exhibitions . It was also in DRUPA 2000 exhibition. But the attraction of people dealing with this technology was (and still is) concentrated, on matters of quality, especially in colour digital printing. Not only potential customers but also sales managers and officers from the supplier side, focus on printing quality and other characteristics on printing.
 Most of the people are still impressed by a colour document printed digitally, ignoring the very important issue that this document must be as good as the other documents that are printed traditionally. But also, they must be delivered as finished products to the market where the final result, the appearance and functionality of the printed document is evaluated.
 Digital Printing came and established in to the market with an added value based on certain advantages and characteristics that are important for a rapidly changing environment in printed media .
 Among others are these characteristics:
 
  • Short cut production time.
    •  
  • Fast delivery.
    •  
  • Printing on Demand.
    •  
  • Personalization.
    •  This is the strength of digital printing where printed matters go directly from pre-press to print by eliminating the film and plate making production stages, as it was mentioned before.
     All these advantages concentrate on two main issues:
     
  • Fast (to RAPID) delivery time and
    •  
  • Imaging of the number of documents that are needed (POD – Printing On Demand).
    •  But here comes the question:
     DIGITAL PRINTING delivers fast WHAT? Loose A4 and/or A3 printed sheets of paper only?
     This can be done with laser or inkjet printers of all kinds.
     This is not of course, the field where digital printing systems should stay. The orientation of these systems is placed on commercial printing. This area deals with final printed documents that can come into the market and function exactly as the traditionally printed and finished ones . Therefore, finishing and binding for digitally printed documents was from the first moment equally important as the printing quality, for example. It was of course natural that at the first appearance of this technology, interest should be given to printing quality. But this has to stop somehow, if we want to have a complete view of the orientation of digital printing into the publishing market .
     

    Relationship between digital printing and finishing:

     The technological advantages mentioned before gave to the digital printing systems the innovative characteristics which enable a new technology to find a position into the market.
     But, thinks started to become difficult when digital printing systems had to face the competition into the real the production, with the traditional printing systems.
     The first comparison took part in the field of printing quality. After the improvement of the quality, size, printing speed and maintenance of digital printing systems had to be compared with traditional printing systems .
     Finally, the most important factor came into the surface:
     The final product that will be delivered to the market, is a finished and completed document at a form of leaflet, brochure, catalogue, magazine or book.
     This aspect was not an important one for a lot of people involved in the Graphic Arts sector and still, people consider that finishing technology is «given» and they have not to pay attention into this area .
     But, for someone that wants to play a role as a manufacturer, supplier, salesman, or commercial printer within digital printing process, knowledge and experience must cover all fields, including the technological development and production process on finishing and binding.
     It is true that manufactures that developed early enough finishing and binding systems that can be adapted and connected with digital printing systems, are now the leaders in this area. From the other side, some traditional suppliers of finishing and binding systems stayed outside this area .
     As a conclusion to this section it is important to notice that digital printing systems came into the marked with advantages such as short of costs and production time in order to take a part of the commercial printing market. This task can be achieved only if these systems can produce printed documents that can be very professional.
     Therefore, digital printing systems had to be integrated with finishing systems that could make these machines as complete as possible.
     Otherwise, they should stay at the level of photocopying machines or color copiers that produce loose sheets of papers at an office environment .
     
    Schematic drawing of a digital printing machine where a binding system is connected on line (courtesy of XEROX HELLAS SA)
     

    Comparison of digital and traditional printed documents finishing systems for digital printing

     There are different ways for development of Finishing systems for digital printing. They can be classified as follows:
     
  • On line and off line systems.
    •  
  • Systems related with the dimensions of the printed sheet.
    •  
  • Systems that combine different finishing operations and methods.
    •  A first part of already existing finishing technologies has been integrated into the digital printing machines serving some absolutely necessary functions.
     These systems are already integrated from the very beginning at the photocopying machines and include feeders, transfer of the sheets, collating, delivery and pile systems and roll to sheet cutting systems.
     
    Schematic drawing of a digital printing machine, where rolls of paper are printed
     A roll to cut system is integrated into the machine (courtesy of IBM Inc.)
     But, the new generation of digital printing systems had to be equipped with more sophisticated finishing systems that can keep the efficiency of digital printing at a high level of speed and quality, and give the technical possibility to produce no more a staple of loose sheets but a finished and ready to deliver document like a BOOK.
     Before we go deeper into this field, it is necessary to compare the basic characteristics between traditional and digitally printed documents, as it concerns the requirement for quality finishing.
     The comparison will be more accurate if there is a definition on the kind of the documents that are to be compared.
     Digital printing systems that require finishing are those that print mainly leaflets, brochures and books with softcover.
     These printed matters are traditionally printed with offset sheet-fed printing machines with the maximum size of 70x100cm (B3 format).
     Therefore, we can define so far the following:
     Art of documents:
     
  • Leaflets
    •  
  • Brochures
    •  
  • Books
    •  Main dimensions (of finished products):
     
  • A4,
    •  
  • B5,
    •  
  • A5.
    •  Main binding methods:
     
  • Saddle stitching,
    •  
  • Perfect binding
    •  
  • Thread sewn binding
    •  
  • Spiral binding.
    •  In , there are presented the main differences of the semiproducts that are produced with the traditional sheet-fed offset and digital printing processes:
     
     Offset sheet-fed and digital printing: main differences between the two printing methods
    Offset printing Digital printing
    Sheet dimencions Up to: 50x70cm61x86cm70x100cm Mainly: a4, a3or roll width:30cm50cm
    Printed sheet characteristics (1) 4, 8, 16 or 32 pages on both sides of the sheet (signature) 2, 4 or 8 pages on both sides of the sheet
    Printed sheet characteristics (2) Sheet to be folded 1, 2, 3 or 4 times Sheet to be folded 1or 2 times or mainly loose sheets
    Offset Digital
    Printed and folded sheet characteristics Better quality, more stable by folding Loose sheets, subject to damages while finished
     

    The aim of finishing and binding technology

     Binding and finishing is much older than printing and is used hundrends of years before Gutenberg invented TYPOGRAPHY. Today the binding and finishing methods are so developed that produce excellent final printed matters. Therefore, the overall consideration in quality, is not only a matter of color separation, pre press and printing but also a matter of finishing and binding .
     As a conclusion: Sophisticated digital printing systems have to be completed with equally sophisticated finishing and binding systems in order to achieve the quality that traditional binding systems and methods offer today. In that case:
     Did we had to invent the wheel once more?
     Of course not.
     What we needed was to consider how to develop concepts and technologies that should allow the combination and/or integration of finishing and binding systems with the digital printing systems.
     Here, different approaches and procedures were developed but before we go into this field it is necessary to describe shortly the traditional finishing workflows and production processes (Print production - sheets of paper in different dimencions - and ):
     
     Finished product: book, catalogue binding methods: perfect binding, thread sewn, combined
    Process Machine/system Semi product
    Folding Folding machines Folded printed sheet
    Gathering / collating Collating machines Collated sheets
    Binding Binding machines Binded product
    Trimming Cutting machines Finished printed product
     
     Leaflet / brochure
    Process Machine Semi product
    Folding Folding machines Folded printed sheet
    Collating - saddle stiching Collating - saddle stiching machines Binded product
    Trimming Cutting machines Finished printed product
     

    Development of finishing and binding systems for digital printing machines

     The production principles of the main finishing processes remain unchanged and are presented at the images that follow:
     
    Principles of paper folding: knife (left) and buckle (wright) folding
     (courtesy of BTI-Hellas SA - Heidelberg Finishing Systems)
     
    Traditional folding machine
     (courtesy of BTI-Hellas SA - Heidelberg Finishing Systems Stahl GmbH)
     
    Perfect binding production process: 1. clamping; 2. cutting; 3. notching
     (courtesy of BTI-Hellas SA - Heidelberg Finishing Systems)
     
    Perfect binding production process 4. gluing; 5. cover feeding; 6. delivery
     (courtesy of BTI-Hellas SA - Heidelberg Finishing Systems)
     
    Production chain for saddle stitching binding: collating, cover feeding, stitching, trimming, delivery
     (courtesy of BTI-Hellas SA - Heidelberg Finishing Systems)
     There are two main procedures in development of finishing systems for digital printing:
     
    1. ON LINE
      This processis comparable with the processing of offset printed sheets by small size traditional printing machines. They include the following machines:
       
    2. Folding machines
      3.  
    3. Gathering – collating machines – vertical or horizontal system
      4.  
    4. Stand – alone binding machines
      5.  
    5. Cutting machines – trimming machines

    6. ON LINE
       
    7. More complex systems in different workflows.
      8.  
    8. Combined techniques of binding.
      9.  
    9. Automatic collating.
      10.  
    10. Sophisticated on line-trimming.

     The basic characteristics of finishing and binding systems have been developed in order to adapt at the specific requirements of the digital printing machines .
     These characteristics can be defined as follows:
     
  • Folding and collating production processes had to be integrated into the digital printing machines.
    •  
  • A new range of stand-alone machines have been manufactured with smaller dimensions.
    •  
  • Saddle stitching binding is also integrated with the digital printing systems.
    •  
  • Perfect binding is combined on line with digital printing systems.
    •  
    Drawing of a collating and saddle-stitching finishing system that is integrated into a digital printing machine
     (courtesy of XEROX HELLAS SA)
     
    Presentation of different types of binding that is integrated on digital printing systems that print loose sheets of paper at the A4 dimension
     (courtesy of HEROX HELLAS SA)
     
    A vertical collating system for loose sheets gathering
     (courtesy of Duplo International Ltd)
     
    Small folding machine for leaflets
     (courtesy of BTI-Hellas SA - Heidelberg Finishing Systems-Stahl GmbH)
     
    Cutting and trimming machine for paper with maximum dimensions of 36x52cm
     (courtesy of BTI-Hellas SA - Heidelberg Finishing Systems-POLAR GmbH)
     
    Perfect binding machine for off-line book binding
     (courtesy of of BTI-Hellas SA - Heidelberg Finishing Systems)
     

    Structure of the workflow for digital printing and finishing:

     The workflow in digital printing and finishing is deternined by the different printing systems that are in use today.
     Almost the half of the pure digital printing systems print sheets of paper mostly in the dimensions of A4 or A3. The hybrid machines (where data are transferred directly to the printing units but printing is done with normal inking systems), print bigger sheets (ie 50x70cm). Finally, there are machines that print rolls of paper at a maximum width of 50 cm. The finishing systems are classified according to the characteristics of each machine or group of machines. This classification is presented at the that follows:
     
    Workflow production for digital printing and finishing systems
     The different workflows of finishing systems can be classified as follows:
     
  • Brochure finishing I for A4 and A5 documents with saddle-stitching binding ( ).
    •  
  • Brochure finishing II for bigger number of documents with saddle-stitching binding ( ).
    •  
  • Book finishing with perfect binding system ( ).
    •  
    Finishing production workflow for A4 and A5 brochures
     (courtesy of XEROX HELLAS SA - XEROX INC)
     
    Finishing workflow for brochures bound with saddle-stitching binding process
     (courtesy of XEROX HELLAS SA - XEROX Document Technology Center, Walldorf, Germany)
     
    Finishing workflow of perfect binding for digitally printed books
     (courtesy of XEROX HELLAS SA- XEROX Inc)
     

    Further development of finishing systems and benefits for digital printing

     Finishing and binding systems have been developed very fast in order to cover the demand for production of digitally printed and finished documents. This development took place by staying to the «shadow» or rather behind the digital printing systems which were –and still are- much more attractive and impressive.
     In a short period of time finishing and binding systems have been developed and in order to give to the digital printing systems the possibility to complete the production process of printed documents.
     Digital printing combined with finishing systems is today into the position to produce final printed documents that look and function much more professional as from the near past.
     Finishing and Binding systems give to the digital printing machines the necessary and required efficiency to bring to the publishing market complete solutions of production and make this new printing and imaging process able to enter more dynamically into the printed media market.
     

    Conclusion:

     The digital printing systems and machines should never been widely accepted if they had been stayed only on the printing of loose sheets of paper.
     As systems that PRINT on PAPER they have to implement the main task of a printed document. To look and function exactly as the traditionally printed and finished documents and products.
     Finishing systems implement the main advantages of digital printing versus the traditionally printed documents, such as the considerable minimising of production time especially from the complete files from pre-press to the final product.
     As a consequence,he added value of digital printing is considerably increased when a finished product is delivered.
     It is necessary to consider that the quality of digitally printed documents is defined and evaluated not only from printing but also (and even more) by the overall quality of the appearance of the final product.
     Suppliers, sales people and customers are mostly concentrated on printing quality and ignore at most cases the factor of the overall quality as it is determined before.
     This has to change and all of us are responsible for keeping the correct procedures on what a digitally printed document is and which its characteristics must be.
     XML is a very interesting new approach for cross-media publishing. That means that we can process a document that can be published either into the Internet or into a Multimedia application AND on PAPER.
     
  • PAPER MEANS PRINTED MEDIA
    •  
  • (ALMOST EVERYTHING) PRINTED MEDIA NEEDS TO BE COMPLETED AS A FINISHED PRODUCT!
    •  That is the importance of processes that we must not ignore if we want to have a complete view on the communication market.
     Finishing and binding this will exist even when traditional offset will be totally replaced by digital printing (Well I hope that will not happen in the next 20 years!)
     THEREFORE WE NEED FINISHING TECHNOLOGIES BECAUSE THEY TURN DIGITALLY PRINTED DOCUMENTS TO LOOK, FUNCTION AND BE PROFESSIONAL.
     Acknowledgements
     I would like to thank Prof. Nils Enlund for his help for the orientation of this paper towards the direction that Graphic Arts Media and Publishing is NOT only computers and data but also machines, production processes and final products on Paper.
     Bibliography
     
    ANT 99 "Printing and Finishing Equipment" Antonopoulos Kostas, (In Greek)
     
    APE 98 1998 Apenberg Mihael: "Wachstumschancen durch den Digitaldruck-Einsatz" Deutscher Drucker 9/4/98 Nr. 13-14 p. 13-16
     
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    Selection and utilization of metadata from news articles   Table of contents   Indexes   Third GCA International HyTime Conference