Introduction to

PRINT PRODUCTION

By PAWAN KOUNDAL
INDIAN INSTITUTE OF MASS COMMUNICATION
PRINT PRODUCTION
 Using the computer and specific
types of software to combine text and
graphics to produce documents
 A technical assembly of digital files
in the accurate format for printing or
for electronic distribution.
Designing print communications such as :
 Newsletters/magazines/house journals
 Newspapers / books
 Brochures
 Advertisements
 Posters
 Logos & business cards
 Itincludes much more than just print
publications.
 Much helpful in publishing PDF, ebooks,
webpages.
 Can convert print communications to
electronic formats including Web and
smart devices such as tablets and phones
Digital Technology in Print Media
 Printing industry has totally changed its way; it
has now become a multimedia industry.
 Since we are living in the smart-phone age, the
printing industry has also changed its nature
from the printing press to news websites and
now the revolutionary news apps (mobile news
applications).
 We can take example of newspapers. The
digital technology allows us to get the
information from newspapers in different
ways. Getting news from conventional
newspaper (hard copy) can now be accessed
through it’s another versions – viz. e-papers,
mobile applications, news websites and social
networking websites as well.
 Print medium : Text, photographs and
graphics
 Online medium: Combinations of text
and photographs with multimedia
elements such as audio clips, video clips
and animated graphics.
Software needed
 Page layout programs combines
text,
graphics &
images
Software Programs
 Word processing Software – puts text into
printed form.
 Example: Microsoft Word
 Drawing Software – used to create
illustrations.
Example: Corel Draw, Adobe Illustrator
 ImageEditing Software – used to modify
drawings and images.
Example : Adobe Photoshop
Software for Print Production
 Choosing the right programs (application
software) for specific task is an important
part of the print production. These
programs offer all kinds of features to
modify the text, graphics and images and
combine them to create high-quality
pages.
 Pagemaker: Pagemaker is the oldest
page layout software invented in 1985 by
Aldus Company for Apple Macintosh.
Later, Adobe has acquired the Aldus
Company and its developed software.
 Quark Express: Quark XPress is the industry
standard page layout program. It can create
newsletters, magazines, brochures,
advertisements, newsletters, letterheads,
certificates – anything. One can import myriad
picture formats and can export documents in
PDF easily. Although Quark is not specifically
made for web pages, there are utilities to
convert Quark pages into web pages.
 Adobe Indesign: Adobe InDesign is a
software application produced by Adobe.
Using it, one can make professional files for
high quality documents that can be sent to a
commercial printer or distributed electronically
as image or pdf files. It was released by Adobe
in 1999. In India, Adobe Indesign is the most
widely used layout software by newspaper and
magazine houses.
 Pagemaker, InDesign and QuarkXPress are the page
layout programs that are most widely used in the
publishing industry.
 The work done in these programs can be easily
optimized for digital publishing viz. PDF, eBooks and
also for layouting a website.
 These programs lets you to handle layout design
freely and control of every element such as fonts,
character spacing, word spacing, and line spacing of
text, and color, size, and resolution of graphics.
Software
 Photoshop is one of the most powerful
software applications for image
editing/modification, color correction, painting
and drawing. It can be used to work with
images that have been digitized on scanners, or
to create original artwork. The image
files/documents you create in Photoshop can be
printed on paper or optimized for use in
multimedia presentations, web pages, or
animation/video projects.
 Corel Draw is a vector-based, graphic drawing
program that lets you create professional
artwork, from simple logos to advertisements
 Vector graphics is the use of geometrical
points, lines, curves, and shapes or polygon(s),
which are all based on mathematical
expressions, to represent images in computer
graphics
Hardware
 The hardware needed for desktop publishing depends on
the types of documents to be produced and the software
package being used:
 Large-screen monitors allow the user to view an entire
page.
 Color printers are useful for previewing color pages and for
printing small quantities of documents.
 Scanners are devices that change images such as
photographs into an electronic form that computers can use.
 Digital camera to produce electronic images that can go
directly into a computer.
Stages of Print Production
Graphic Design
Kenly and Beach defined Graphic Design as

“Getting it Printed”
by
arrangement of type and visual elements along with
specifications for paper, ink colors, and printing processes
that, when combined convey a

Visual Message
 Some of the work done in the graphic design stage might include

page layout, typography,

color decisions
and producing a final computer file which would be given to a
printing press.
The graphic art stage of print production may be handled by a single
graphic designer or managed by a separate graphic design
department within their own company.
Stages of Print Production
Prepress
 Prepress commonly refers to all the print production
functions that take place from the time the printing press
receives the artwork — from a graphic designer or
customer — up until the actual printing takes place on the
printing press.
 These functions normally include at least some of the
following:
 receiving media files or downloading them from the web;
creating a “proof” for client approval; making any changes
requested by the client; and finally making the plates that will
be used on the press.
Stages of Print Production
Printing
 Printing with regard to print production is the
mechanical process of applying ink to paper using a
printing press.
 The printing press is the most cost effective way of
producing large volumes of printed materials due to its
speed and the lower cost of paper.
 With the rapid improvement of office printing and high
speed photocopying technology many companies refer to
the in-house production of large quantities of color copies
or large-format prints as their print production.
Stages of Print Production
Bindery
 After a job is printed it always goes to a bindery stage,
sometimes called finishing. This stage can include one or
many steps depending on the end product:
 cutting (also called “trimming,”)
 folding,
 laminating,
 stitching (with wires or staples for magazines,)
 perfect binding (for paperback books,)
 and hardback bookbinding.
Stages of Print Production
Delivery
 Some jobs will either be picked up by the customer or
delivered by the printer.
 In other cases, such as periodicals, they may be
delivered to a specialized mailing facility, with some
larger printers also having their own in-house mailing
services. Example : Weekly Magazines, Daily Newspapers
 In this stage the addressee labels are applied or
computer-imprinted from the customer’s mailing list
database.