Printing

Offset printing

Indirect printing technique whose principle is based on the mutual repulsion of water and ink. The printing form is an area divided into printing and non-printing parts in one plane. Non-printing (hydrophilic) parts attract water, and therefore they reject the ink. And vice versa, the printing parts are greasy (hydrophobic), they reject water. The image is then transferred by direct contact to an elastic offset blanket (offset rubber), and subsequently, due to contact between the pressure cylinder and the rubber, the image is transferred to the paper.

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Coating

• Disperse coating – for protection and effect. It is applied by a specialized coating unit, it needs to be cured in a dryer afterwards (warm air + IR drying). Advantages: quick drying time, no yellowing of the coating film, quick subsequent processing, odour neutrality, used for food packaging.
• Printing varnish – oil-based varnishes have similar composition to offset inks; hardening of the film is caused by penetration and oxidation.
• Advantages: flexible coating layer, simple application, easy partial coating with the help of a printing plate, good absorption.
• UV coating – used to achieve a bold effect; it is applied in a specialized coating unit.

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Book bindings

Softcover binding (paperback)

• V1 – saddle-stitching – the sheets are stitched together with the cover through the fold line and then cut on three sides. A clamp from a flat or round wire is used for the stitching.
• V2 – glue binding – individual sheets or textblocks are glued together at the spine, and then glued to a wrap-around cover and cut on three sides.
• V3 – stab stitched binding – a brochure stitched with wire clamps from outside and then inserted in a carton wrap-around cover.
• V4 – sewn binding – textblocks are stitched together with a common or fusible thread and then glued into the cover

Semi-hardcover binding

• V5 – semi-hard binding with lightweight cardboard cover – the textblocks are either glued or stitched together.
• V6 – this binding is known from children’s board books.

  Hardcover binding

• V7 – a hard cover binding with combined cover (semi-cloth binding with hard book boards made out of cardboard and a cloth spine, the case is covered by some other material, usually printed paper).
• V8 – hardcover binding with single type cover (cloth cover with hard book boards made of cardboard and a spine with a fully clothed cover; alternatively the cover can be made of paper or other materials, or laminated, the shape of the spine can by curved or flat).
• V9 – the boards are made of plastic, reinforced by a non-plasticized PVC foil or cardboard.

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Paper

Paper properties

• Whiteness – given in units or as relative to the whiteness of magnesium oxide or barium sulfate. The higher the value, the brighter the paper.
• Opacity – a property of paper that prevents the light passing through. It is measured in percentage of the reflected light. A perfectly opaque paper has an opacity value of 100%.
• Basis weight (grammage) – the mass of paper per area unit. Usually in grams per square meter (g/m2)
• Paper thickness / calliper – area quantity of paper cross-section relative to specific basis weight. Single volumen (marked as volumen 1) means that natural paper with glossy finish with a basis weight 100g/m2 has sheet thickness of 0.1 mm

Classification by basis weight

• Paper – single-layer flat material up to 200g/m2 of basis weight.
• Cartoon– jednovrstvový plošný materiál od 150g/m2 do 400g/m2.
• Cardboard – viacvrstvový plošný materiál od 250g/m2 do 4000g/m2 v závislosti od spôsobu výroby a použitia.

Classification by surface finish

• Paper with natural finish (uncoated) – wood-free graphical, recycled.

• Glazed paper – wood-free offset, SC and MF paper.
• Coated paper – one-side coated, two-side coated, coated once or several times.

• Cast coated paper

Paper formats A – basic format B – printing format C – envelope format

	A (mm)	C (mm)	B (mm)
0	841 x 1189	917 x 1297	1000 x 1414
1	594 x 841	648 x 917	707 x 1000
2	420 x 594	458 x 648	500 x 707
3	297 x 420	324 x 458	353 x 500
4	210 x 297	229 x 324	250 x 353
5	148 x 210	162 x 229	176 x 250
6	105 x 148	114 x 162	125 x 176
7	74 x 105	81 x 114	88 x 125
8	52 x 74	57 x 81	62 x 88
9	37 x 52	40 x 57	44 x 62
10	26 x 37	28 x 40	31 x 44

Paper thickness by type

Paper type	Glossy (mm)	Matte (mm)	100 sheets (mm)
Offset 80g/m2	0,1		10
Offset 100g/m2	0,12		12
Offset 120g/m2	0,135		13,5
Offset 140g/m2	0,16		16
Offset 190g/m2	0,22		22
Coated 90g/m2	0,065		6,5
Coated 100g/m2	0,075	0,08	7,5
Coated 115g/m2	0,08	0,085	8
Coated 135g/m2	0,095	0,1	9,5
Coated 150g/m2	0,115	0,125	11,5
Coated 170g/m2	0,12	0,135	12
Coated 200g/m2	0,14	0,175	14
Coated 250g/m2	0,185	0,23	18,5
Coated 300g/m2	0,23	0,28	23
Coated 300g/m2	0,285	0,34	28,5
Folding box board 250g/m2	0,29		29
Folding box board 300g/m2	0,37		37
Folding box board 350g/m2	0,44		44
Folding box board 400g/m2	1,02		102
Folding box board 500g/m2	1,16		116
Card stock 250g/m2	0,35		35

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Colour scheme

Colour scheme is always shown as felt side / wire side where the felt is the front side and wire side is the back side of the printed material. 1/1 duplex one-colour printing 2/0 simplex two-colour printing 4/4 duplex full-colour printing, so-called CMYK 5/5 duplex full-colour printing + a fifth additional direct colour CMYK+Panton Colour scheme is further classified as: CMYK full-colour printing where the colour is determined by combination of 4 basic colours. C / Cyan M / Magenta Y / Yellow K / Key You can further classify colour scheme as a direct colour from the Pantone swatch library.​​​​​​​