Advancements in Flexo Printing: A New Era for Newspaper Printing

After extensive development, flexographic (flexo) printing technology has made significant advancements, particularly in recent years.

Key flexo printing technologies have experienced major breakthroughs, creating highly favorable conditions for their application in the newspaper printing industry.

This indicates that flexo printing technology is becoming increasingly refined and entering the stage of practical implementation in newspaper printing.

Utilization of Prepress Digital Workflow

Implementing a digital workflow is crucial for improving timeliness, reducing costs, and enhancing quality.

The main components and functions of a digital workflow include an open system, file creation, editing, and final modification flexibility, PDF language format, electronic file exchange, trapping, spell checking, large format proofing, and RIP one-time output.

Adopting this system significantly reduces process steps, shortens work hours, eliminates subjective factors associated with manual operations, and ensures the quality of prepress processing.

The newspaper industry in our country has a solid foundation for embracing digital processes.

By further refining and standardizing these processes, we can greatly elevate the technical level of the newspaper prepress digital workflow.

Maturation of Flexo Computer-to-Plate (CTP) Technology

Traditional plate-making methods employ film, which is time-consuming and unreliable in terms of quality, with approximately 30 minutes required to produce a set of color plates.

In contrast, CTP technology simplifies plate-making procedures, substantially reducing plate production time (only one-third of the time required by traditional methods).

Furthermore, CTP technology mitigates dot gain issues, minimizing the loss of network dots and grid connections in highlights and dark areas.

Renowned prepress equipment and plate production companies have introduced practical CTP products.

Leading manufacturers such as Agfa, Heidelberg, Creocell Angel, DuPont, Barco, Kodak Polyphoto, BASF, and Hell have launched flexographic direct plate-making systems, ensuring quality assurance for newspapers utilizing flexo printing.

Advantages of Flexo Printing in Newspaper Printing

Flexo printing technology offers distinct advantages over offset printing when applied in newspaper printing:

(1) Lower equipment costs compared to offset printing machines.

Flexo printing machines incur approximately one-third lower equipment costs than offset printing machines, given the same substrate size and printing capacity.

(2) Higher printing speeds compared to offset printing machines.

Flexo printing machines currently operate at three different speeds: low speed (80-150m/min), medium speed (150-300m/min), and high speed (600-700m/min).

As flexo printing is a light-pressure technique and employs sleeve printing plates, it experiences minimal inertial imbalance forces, reducing the likelihood of paper breakage and ensuring excellent operational stability.

Consequently, high-speed printing can be achieved.

(3) Use of lightweight newsprint.

The stability of flexo printing machines and the absence of offset printing’s dampening solution allow the use of lightweight newsprint (40-45g/m2) in flexo printing.

By substituting thick paper with thin paper, the national newspaper printing industry can save approximately 18% on average per year (based on an annual printing volume of 54 billion pairs of opening pages).

(4) Low paper waste in flexo printing.

Flexo printing requires shorter adjustment and trial printing times, resulting in a low paper waste rate of about 2%, which is nearly 9 percentage points lower than offset printing.

When combined with the paper savings achieved through the use of thin newsprint, a single newspaper can save approximately 27% of paper annually.

Reports indicate that the “San Francisco Observer” in the United States saves $41 million per year by employing flexo printing.

Ink Adoption and Short Ink Path System Ensure Widespread Flexo Printing Application

(1) Ink characteristics.

Flexo printing uses environmentally friendly inks that are free of volatile organic solvents, thereby improving the printing environment.

Additionally, the wastewater generated during printing can be treated and recycled, while all waste ink can be reused as black ink.

Furthermore, flexo printing employs quick-drying inks, virtually eliminating smudging issues during printing.

(2) Short ink path system.

The closed anilox roller short ink path inking system enables precise ink supply to the printing plate while significantly improving inking performance.

By adjusting technical parameters such as screen line number and geometric properties of the grid cells on the anilox roller, the desired ink quantity can be achieved.

The adoption of a closed reverse doctor blade system maintains ink cleanliness during printing and ensures stable ink performance, resulting in consistent ink color across printed products.

Recent advancements in ceramic anilox roller manufacturing have achieved significant breakthroughs, allowing the processing of anilox rollers with more than 1500 lines/inch or even high-line count anilox rollers with 2000 lines/inch or 2500 lines/inch.

These improvements significantly enhance the service life of anilox rollers and create conditions for high-speed, high-precision flexographic printing.

High-Quality Output of Flexo Printing

When flexo printing is utilized in newspaper printing, the printed products exhibit the following characteristics:

1. Superior quality in embossed printing, resulting in clear graphics, well-defined images, and vibrant colors. Flexo printing outperforms offset printing in this aspect.
2. Exceptional printing repeatability, ensuring consistent ink color across all printed products.
3. Printing plates can achieve a screening line count of 133-150 lines/inch. With CTP technology, the resolution can reach 1270dpi, satisfying the requirements of newspaper printing.
4. Convenient multi-color group printing, leveraging the advantages of spot color printing.

Overall, flexo printing offers high-quality results that fully meet the demands of newspaper printing.

In conclusion, the newspaper printing industry has made significant strides from the era of offset printing and has now entered a new era of flexo printing newspapers.

As a leading country in newspaper printing, our indu