Application of CIP4 Ink Presetting System in Newspaper Printing

I. The Role of CIP4 in Printing Digital Processes and Newspaper Printing

The printing process is complex but regular, and industry experts divide the entire printing process into several processes: prepress processing and plate making, printing, and postpress processing. Whether it is commercial printing or newspaper printing, most of these workers can get finished products. It is a set of interconnected processes. The continuous emergence of new printing technologies, especially the large number of applications of prepress CTP technology, such as the PDF output format before printing, the automatic version change of the printing press, automatic car wash, and automatic register function, the MIS enterprise Management System in the printing factory The continuous development and refinement of this all make people put forward higher requirements for the transmission of printing information and printing management information and the accuracy of the transmission process. With the continuous deepening of the informatization and digitization revolution, the exchange of printing standard data becomes possible. In order to facilitate the orderly and extensive linking of printing processes, printing standard data control has been put on the agenda by a large number of printing product suppliers.

For these reasons, CIP4 came into being. CIP4 is an organization that means "The International Cooperation for the lntegration Of Processes 1n Prepress, Press and Postpress". The organization has developed on the basis of CIP3, and has added expanded functions for enterprise management and e-commerce to realize the full integration of printing processes so as to realize the job evaluation, acceptance, scheduling, production and production tracking of printing factories. , delivery arrangements, financial management and Other full-process automation management. The foundation of CIP4 is the continuous deepening of automation processes within the various processes of printing, and it is highlighted in the fact that it provides a fully automated platform for printing data management, sharing and standardization, and production management, which ensures that the same information can be different. The printing stage communicates with each other and explains, eventually achieving the unity of the process.

As the concept of CIP4 was put forward, digital printing process management can integrate prepress, printing, and postpress processing without hindrance. This trend will also become more pronounced with the continuous in-depth development of digital production within each process, which has played a positive role in improving printing production efficiency, product quality, and reducing waste of consumables.

Judging from the current state of printing in China’s newspaper industry, the comprehensive digital production of graphic and graphic information has entered a mature stage, and the network of information transmission has also become increasingly perfect. The resulting digital process production and control is increasingly printed by newspapers. Factory management personnel are concerned. The most basic goal of the digital process is to link different processes based on operational information and achieve data exchange and coordination. This is the so-called concept of “process”.

Newspaper printing factory adopts CIP4 digital workflow technology, which can bring convenience to work and increase economic efficiency. For example, JDF job ticket can be used to define and control the printing process. This includes layout size, proofing status, output settings, folding and collation information, etc. The ink preset function in CIP4 can be used to adjust the press before the machine is turned on. The ink control mechanism can monitor the entire job through CIP4 and can even manage costs and distribution through it.

Second, the actual role of CIP4 ink pre-control system in newspaper printing

The concept of CIP4 is extensive and far-reaching. We are mainly talking about ink control here, focusing on the role of ink presetting in newspaper printing. It is one of the most important functions of CIP4.

The development of the newspaper printing market in China is very fast and the market competition is becoming increasingly fierce. Constantly expanding the amount of information in newspapers, increasing color layout, and shortening the time for information transmission have become important means for the newspaper's steady development. As a result, the newspaper's requirements for printing houses are getting higher and higher. From the point of view of printing the whole chain, it is not difficult for us to find that many newspaper printing companies have not paid sufficient attention to the continuity of the entire prepress, printing, and postpress processing. For example, in practice, printing press operators often do not see it. Into the original information, often caused by ink control is not accurate, or due to differences in the quality of personnel, differences between the machine and other factors caused by the printing production efficiency, cost increases, quality is not balanced. This is also the problem caused by the inability to connect effectively between processes.

In addition, at the different stages of newspaper printing, there is a considerable amount of information that is repeatedly input, and a considerable amount of information is repeatedly calculated, among which the control of ink keys is the most obvious. In the past, the control and adjustment of the ink keys of the rotary press was time-consuming and laborious, and usually it took a few debugging attempts to obtain a satisfactory result, and the rotational speed of the rotary printing press was quite high, and therefore a large amount of consumables were often consumed in the process. At the same time, it also has a considerable impact on the production cycle of newspapers. Domestic newspaper printing companies have long seen this problem, and then used the method of printing plate scanning, the stencil printing plate was scanned to generate ink information and transmitted to the printer console, to complete the control of the ink key work. However, this method has complicated operation and large investment. In particular, the use of a plate scanner to generate ink key information takes a long time and is extremely unsuitable for an efficient production mode such as newspaper printing.

CIP4 can preset the ink keys of the printing machine. The pages are translated at the same time as the raster processing and recorded in the JDF file. This ensures greater accuracy than manual control or plate scanners to obtain information faster. This can greatly improve the rationality and accuracy of the ink distribution of the printing press. Adopting this efficient information transfer mode can save time, reduce wastage of consumables, and improve the printing quality of newspapers. It also provides management basis for quality balance among multiple units, and has strong practical value.

For newspapers, how to shorten the printing cycle, improve the printing quality, and reduce production waste is its basic task. However, due to various reasons, newspaper printing companies often encounter the following difficulties in the process of their work:

1. Platemaking does not meet the printing specification.

2. Not proofing, or proofing and printing colors do not match, that is, we often say that printing can not catch up with proofing;

3. The printing and the two processes before printing are separated, there is no reference basis for adjustment on the printing press, and there is no quantitative standard;

4. The influence factors of the operator who controls the printing press are large and arbitrary;

5. The printer's working conditions are unstable, resulting in unstable printing quality;

6. Due to the difference in the quality of the operators and the differences in the types and age of the printing presses, the quality of the multiple units at the same time is uneven;

7. Adjusting the amount of ink on the machine table is often repeated several times, resulting in a waste of printing time and affecting the production efficiency. In order to ensure the delivery time is often at the expense of print quality;

8. Newspaper printing presses used for printing are fast. In the early days of printing, the amount of time for adjusting the amount of ink is long, resulting in a large amount of wasted paper and ink.

9. The prepress and printing departments are independent of each other and are often plagued by print quality issues:

10. No related data can be followed for the overall quality management of the printing plant.

How to solve the above problems, the CIP4 ink preset system provides newspaper companies with a complete and practical solution.

1. The ink pre-setting system is located between pre-press and printing, and it is based on the layout information. In accordance with the CIP4 international standard, the ink information is used as a link to link the two processes before printing and printing, thereby realizing the digital process management of the printing plant. ;

2. The ink information generated by the ink preset system is generated from the rasterized layout information, and the layout information can be analyzed most directly. The data has a very high accuracy and truly reflects the coverage of the ink in each printing process. To quantify it, it can greatly save printing press adjustment time, improve production efficiency, and reduce the waste of consumables;

3. The ink presetting system has considered many external factors that affect print quality, including print quality problems caused by human factors, ink characteristics, paper characteristics, and differences in printing presses. According to the specific working environment, the corresponding characteristic documents can be formulated so that the printing effect is always consistent;

4. The ink preset system provides a means for companies to adopt digital production and management processes.

The survival of CIP4 requires a corresponding environment. At present, quite a number of newspaper printing companies in China have such conditions.

Firstly, the networked and digital production mode of the printing factory has taken shape.

Secondly, the digitized collection and processing of information at the front-end of printing has matured, and the production process is based on digital technology. At the same time, CTP technology has been adopted.

Thirdly, the configuration of printing presses has been improved, and the recently introduced printing equipments in China have all configured or reserved CIP4 ink information interfaces to facilitate the connection of processes.

The ink preset information works as follows:

Third, the ink preset system in the newspaper printing small application examples

In the CIP4 ink preset Information Management System promoted and applied in the domestic newspaper printing market, Shanghai Wenhui Xinmin Newspaper Group Printing Service uses a system called QuickMan. This ink preset system is an ink control system specifically designed for newspaper printing. Its core content is based on CIP4 technology and ink control software based on the actual production conditions of the newspaper printing factory. In the printing front-end data processing at the same time complete the statistics of the ink information, and the data is transmitted to the corresponding printer ink control system, the purpose is to provide information on the basis of the newspaper layout information, color information and unified color standards, and ultimately achieve India The interconnection between the former and the printing process increases the stability of the printing quality, shortens the production cycle, and reduces the cost.

By using the CIP4 ink preset system, the Shanghai Wenhui Xinmin Newspaper Group Printing Center has achieved significant results in several ways:

1. The quality of printing has been significantly improved and "controllability" has been achieved. It changed the traditional way of working on printing ink color pre-adjustment based on the working experience of the printer leader, and basically made the first report acceptable. When the same type of newspapers were printed on different machines, the printing colors and hue of all the machines were consistent with the prepress separation results, which reduced the interference of human factors to the printing quality and met the strict requirements of the advertisers for printing colors. The quality-reconciliation caused by the color problems of newspapers provides the basis for solving problems.

2. Printing efficiency has improved significantly. The data file generated by the RIP is interpreted by the CIP4 interpreter to generate ink preset data. After being corrected by the ink prefabrication software, the data is sent from the data exchange to the control system of the printing press and the ink amount value of each ink zone is automatically controlled. The printing adjustment time was greatly shortened, and the boot preparation time (4+1 and 2+1 modes for double paper printing) was shortened by an average of 3 minutes.

3. Effectively reduce material costs. The amount of printing and printing has been greatly reduced. Taking the double-sided color newspaper as an example, the average amount of printing of each product in the printing stage has been reduced by 20%.