Best of PI - Layout

January 1988 Working with Other Printer's Negatives

Since we installed a marvelous multi-million dollar computer system a couple of years ago, we've been deluged with statistics and information that, if read, can reveal all sorts of dark secrets about our business. The new challenge is trying to figure out which of the stuff you should worry about.

One of the more interesting items of information the "system" gives us is something called profit by product line. Since all we do is print books, the the machine was challenged to come up with very many products but one of the breakdowns was books printed from "customer supplied negatives".

In some cases this means individual, loose negatives that we opaque and strip but the large majority are stripped negatives from a book that was previously printed by another printer.

At one time I was under the impression that any book printer could take any other book printer's stripped negatives and print them with no problems. All the publisher needed to do was tell any printer he asked to quote that the negatives existed and then everyone had an equal opportunity to do the reprint.

It turns out that that is virtually never the case because of the following reasons.

  1. PRESS SIZE: If the first printing was done on a web or a 70" sheet fed press, and this is frequently the case, we and most other short run printers could not use them without restripping them.
  2. FOLDING IMPOSITION: Some large and older printers ran an imposition known as quad insert. Whoever did that imposition originally can probably still do it but not many others can. Right angle folding is the common sheetfed imposition being used today. Negatives laid out for quad insert folding would have to be restripped by most printers.
  3. CENTERLINES: This is the critical distance from the edge of the plate to the center of the sheet. Problems here come about partly because of idiosyncracies of printers but the main problem is because of sheet sizes. We run a 6 x 9" book on a 38 x 50" sheet while most other printers use a 37 x 49" size. We can use their flats but have to spend additional time in layout compensating for this change. All the other printer has to do to use our flats is stretch his paper 1" in each direction.
  4. FOLDING A 64 PAGE SHEET: A book is ultimately bound in 32 page signatures but it is frequently printed in 64's. There are two popular ways to convert this to 32's ... folding double up signatures or split guide folding. I don't happen to know exactly what either one is but I know we can do either though split guide folding is slower. Some printers can't do either so they cut the sheet in half and fold in regular 32's; some can do only one or the other. Another variable in folding the sheet is whether the first printer used down folds or up folds. We can do either but we're set up to do down folds and changing over is time consuming and accuracy may be impaired.
  5. SIGNATURES WITH LIPS: Some gathering and sewing machines require a lip on the signature in order to feed it. We do not need a lip so we don't put one on our signatures but someone whose machine does need one would have a lot of fun trying to bind signatures printed from our flats.
  6. PUNCHING FLATS: In order to get the best press and folding accuracy, we no longer use flats that are not pin registered to the press. The technique of punching (or pin registering) flats is relatively new and many printers still do not do it. For a printer to take someone's unpunched flats and punch them for their presses is going to add about $.30/page to the price. And, even if the first printer did pin register his flats, there are so many different pin systems in the use today its very likely the new printer will have to do it over again.
OTHER AREAS OF CONCERN: Other things that work against the efficient moving of negatives from printer to printer include having to roll them up to transport them (negatives can pop off the old flats if rolled up), stretching or shrinking of old paper flats (we now use stable base plastic but paper flats were common until recently and many printers still use paper), figuring how the first printer handled halftones (they can be stripped on separate flats, stripped into the line negatives or composited into the line negative, and each of these inethods are handled a bit differently in plate making).

When we are asked to bid on a reprint using someone else's negatives, we prefer to just photograph a copy of the book unless: (1) The first printing was done in Ann Arbor or, (2) the job had halftones.

If the first printing was done outside Ann Arbor and contained halftones, we would decline to bid. If it was done outside Ann Arbor but did not contain halftones, we would bid but would use the printed book as camera copy and ignore the negatives. If the first printing was done in Ann Arbor, I would assume we could use the existing negatives but would add about $.50/page to our usual reprint price to cover time for adapting the negatives to fit our circumstances.

Unfortunately this tale has a somewhat negative tone because it describes something that printers have, I believe, traditionally goofed on. We typically give too much credit for the use of someone else's negatives.

No two printers are going to lay out a job in exactly the same way, and negatives are not as interchangeable as publishers have been led to believe. This is getting more pronounced every day and now with the advent of computerized plate making (like the Rachwal Super 70 that does not even use page negatives), it's going to be a still bigger problem in the future.

If you ask for bids on a reprint with negatives standing somewhere, I believe your best alternative would be to identify who the last printer was. That will give the new person who is bidding on your job an idea of what he would have to work with, and he can react accordingly. Just saying on the quote request that negatives exist doesn't really tell the printer enough to let him bid accurately.

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Spring 1988 Bleeds ... When Do They Cause a Problem?

Bleeds, in printing terminology, occur when copy runs off the edge of the page. Because some of the pages in a signature are on the outer edge of the sheet and the printing press can't print right to the edge of the sheet, bleeds can become a problem for the printer.

Here's our effort at explaining when you should be concerned about bleeds. A bleed into the bind or gutter is never a problem. That area never falls on the outside of the sheet so it is of no concern to the printer.

If your book is undersized, say 5 x 8" or 8 x 10", there is also no problem with bleeds since the standard sheet is larger than it needs to be for those undersized trim sizes and you don't need to print to the edge of the sheet to get a page to bleed.

However, if your book is to be "full" size and has pages that bleed at the top, bottom or outer edge, that bleed may fall on the outside of the sheet where the grippers on the press do not allow printing.

Fortunately, in sheet fed printing of a typical 32 page signature, there are only eight page edges (out of a total of 128 possible edges) that fall in this nonprintable area. And, if there are only one or two bleeds in a signature that fall on these problem edges, we can change the signature's imposition to move them elsewhere on the sheet. Thus, if you have only a few bleeds spread throughout the book, the printer can accommodate them with very little problem. However, if you have many bleeds that are concentrated in a relatively few pages and you want a full, standard trim size, then your printer can't handle the bleeds without additional expense. "Problem bleeds" can be handled by either running a larger sheet for that signature or putting it through the press twice, once to print half the pages then turning it around to do the second half.

Unfortunately, because of different kinds of press equipment and folding impositions, we can't tell you exactly which pages will cause the problem. We can say that if there are only a few bleeds it is not a problem, bleeds on undersized books are not a problem and bleeds into the bind are not a problem.

If your copy has very many bleeds that aren't covered above, it's best to tell your printer where they fall so he can quote your job correctly.

How's that for being specific?

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