How to control the cost of book printing from the perspective of technology

The printing industry is a typical processing industry. The current income is low. After deducting all the fees payable, the after-tax income of 3% to 5% is “profiteering”. Sometimes it is only by selling paper and scrap to maintain the income. In fact, through scientific and reasonable design and production processes to reduce the cost of books and periodicals, there is great potential to be tapped. Here, the author will talk about how to control the cost of book printing from a technical point of view.

Business competence and responsibility are prerequisites

Process designers must not only have strong professional knowledge, such as fully understanding the performance of the machine and the printability of paper, ink and plate, but also have a wealth of practical experience, can handle some unexpected situations, the most important thing is We must have a rigorous and meticulous work style, always maintain high demands in our work, and clearly control the process with strong logical thinking ability.

Confirmation of the certificate

First of all, we must fully communicate with the customers, clarify the specifications of the books and magazines, make adjustments from the process, make the best use of the effective format of the paper, and reduce the generation of raw edges and waste. Wherever possible, the standard specifications should be used as much as possible, with or without special-shaped, irregular opening specifications. If you can't avoid it, choose a special edition, consider choosing the right machine, and finish the job by opening and closing the printing, and reduce the printing cost as much as possible.

At present, the specifications of China's book publications are gradually aligning with the international large-scale specifications, and detailed calculations should be made in the specific selection to avoid increasing costs. The opening format is from 787mm×l092mm to 889mm×l194mm, and there is more than 28% cost increase in the paper unit. Therefore, if conditions permit, it is still necessary to select the conventional 64-open, 32-open, 16-open and other specifications. Use 24 open, 20 open, 12 open, etc. as much as possible. If you can use positive specifications, you should try not to use large specifications, so as to lay the foundation for reducing printing costs. Judging from the current domestic situation, most of the books published in 16 editions are still positive. Some of them have changed since the cost was too high, and the proportion of positively opened editions has also picked up.

material selection

As we all know, since the second half of 2016, under the influence of multiple factors, paper prices have skyrocketed and printing companies have struggled. Since paper costs account for 40% to 50% of the total printing cost, the role of reducing costs is obvious from paper. In the inner pages of general journals, double-bonded paper or light-weight paper with a basis weight of 60-100g/m2 is used. The color-inserted paper is made of coated paper with a basis weight of 105-157g/m2. The cover is more than 128-250g/m2. Coated paper; the inner pages of most books are mostly made of double-bonded paper with a basis weight of 60-80g/m2, and the cover is made of coated paper with a basis weight of 128-300g/m2.

The following principles should be considered when selecting: 1 can meet customer requirements; 2 can adapt to printability; 3 can be suitable for post-press processing. It is not enough to meet the above three conditions. The most important thing is that the price should be affordable. This is the most important part to control the printing cost. Under normal circumstances, the lower the paper weight, the lower the unit price, so when the product quality and production schedule can meet the conditions, use low-quantity paper as much as possible.

Cover design

When designing the cover, consider the book block material, the finished product size, the thickness of the back ridge and the size of the web or the tab. If the web allows, the tab or the pull tab can be enlarged accordingly. In general, the size of the tab is It accounts for more than 1/3 of the written width, and the size of the pull sheet is more than 2/3 of the written width. Carefully check whether the format of the cover material has been effectively utilized. Try to use the cover of the cover or the width of the page to adapt to the format of the material. Do not blindly pursue artistic creativity and cause unnecessary paper waste.

In addition, from the analysis of China's current binding processing, most of the processes are still at the level of manual and machine-assisted, and there are few printing companies that can introduce production lines for batch folding, cutting or pulling pages, so the general books and periodicals To design a Lekou or pull page as little as possible, one more process should be considered, so as not to increase unnecessary production troubles.

Text design

(1) Layout requirements. The version of the heart should be in the center of the finished product. When using the flat and perfect binding, the position should be appropriately reduced by about 5mm, so that the book is beautiful to read. Under these preconditions, graphic designers should control the scale when designing the core.

(2) Deliberate pursuit of artistic effects will increase the difficulty and quality of binding. In order to pursue the atmosphere of the layout, artistic creativity, design and integration, some albums do not have much problem if the binding method is locked, but if you choose wireless binding, some parts will be covered. Off, the printed documents need to be processed accordingly to be able to print normally. Even so, the positional deviation of the front and back page patterns is likely to occur during binding, resulting in quality accidents, rework and redoing are inevitable, and the cost naturally increases a lot.

(3) The control of the number of sheets is very important. Judging from the actual situation of post-press processing in China, all printing companies do not like the design of sticky or sticky pages. Sticking or sticking pages is a laborious and time-consuming task, and timely communication with customers. .

Machine selection

For most book printing , if the printing volume reaches 20,000 or more, it can be considered to use a rotary printing machine. Because the current rotary printing machine and the sheet-fed printing machine are basically the same in the paper materials, the printing quality has not been much different, and the printing of the rotary printing machine has been folded, which not only improves the binding efficiency, but also saves The cost.

For the printing of more than 50,000 copies, less than 32 copies of the book printing, double printing can be used. Although the cost of monochrome printing plate has increased by 100 to 200 yuan, the binding work efficiency has increased by more than 50%. After comparison, the overall efficiency More than 15%, and the greater the amount of printing, the more obvious the effect.

For books that are not very demanding and have a paper weight below 70g/m2, double-pass printing can also be considered, and the printing cycle can be reduced by more than 40%.

The books with a print number of about 5,000 copies should be printed on a sheet-fed printing press, so that the material is not wasted too much. (The rotary presses are turned off every time and then turned on, and about 60 to 100 sheets are discarded due to uneven ink color. For scrap, sheetfed presses can use paper to replace the finished paper for calibration and adjustment, reducing unnecessary material consumption).

Printing color selection

Most books and magazines only need to print black, which can reflect the effect. Of course, the color is composed of four colors or five colors, which makes the photos and graphics appear vivid and pleasing, but the printing cost is not only increased by 4 times. , but 5 to 6 times. This is because printing four colors is more black than printing, not only printing three times, but also increasing the cost. First of all, considering the input equipment, the price ratio of the domestic single-sheet monochrome single-sided printing press and the domestic single-sheet four-color offset printing press is 1:8. If it is an imported machine, the disparity is greater; secondly, the material cost The above analysis mainly refers to the ink, and each group of 1kg of four-color ink is much larger than the price of 4kg black ink, and the general price ratio is 2:1 or more. This puts higher requirements on the technical requirements and quality management of enterprises.

Therefore, in the case of communication with customers, it is possible to use spot color printing with spot color printing, and to use two-color printing for two-color printing, so that the printing cost is well controlled, especially in the case where the total cost is determined. The effect is very obvious.

Binding method selection

Common book binding methods include plastic head, flat order, saddle stitching, wireless binding, lock binding and so on. Among them, the plastic head is the simplest and convenient binding method. The disadvantage is that it is easy to peel off and the firmness is poor. The advantage is that the binding cost is low. The flat order is a popular binding method. Most books are not required to be applied. Generally, the thickness of the back is applicable. For the available ordering of 2~12mm, the disadvantage is that the appearance quality is poor and the mass production efficiency is low; the saddle stitching is one of the most common binding methods, the thinner and less book pages, and the less demanding books and magazines can be applied. The characteristic is that it is suitable for mass production and can be read out. The disadvantage is that it is easy to unbook after repeated reading; the lock line is mainly suitable for high-end albums or exquisite books, and is used more in hardcover books. The disadvantage is that the production cycle is long and large. The construction is difficult and the cost is high. Books and magazines should use the saddle stitching or binding binding method as much as possible, which is conducive to large-scale assembly line operations, improve production efficiency and increase output.

Folding design

It is generally recommended to use a folding folding machine to ensure that the quality is guaranteed and the efficiency is improved. Generally, the paper is less than 80g/m2, and the binding method is saddle stitching, flat binding, and binding. It can be designed to be folded four times. For papers with a basis weight of 105-128g/m2, three folds can be used. If the binding method is saddle stitching, the paper weight can be relaxed to 157g/m2, provided that the computer can control the crawling of each page during the imposition of the book; The plate can meet the requirements, and the tolerance of the adjacent printing of the core is less than 2mm (the national standard is 4mm). For papers with a basis weight of 157-230 g/m2, 1 to 2 fold is used. For papers with a basis weight of 250 g/m2 or more, the indentation folds should basically be used.

In order to ensure the quality of the folding, in principle, machine folding is required, and the manual folding is limited to 1 to 2 fold or a low-profile folding product. The folding page should be flowered to deflate the signature to prevent the occurrence of wrinkles. The binding method is a saddle-stitched product, and it is not allowed to completely break the knife and fold, otherwise the quality accident of the signature may be easily occurred during the binding. The binding method is a glued product, and the 4-fold signature back and the groove should be appropriately enlarged to prevent leakage and peeling.

Today, as the market competition intensifies, more and more printing companies are actively seeking innovation. For printing companies, the era of meager profits depends on refined management and cost savings to survive and profit. Printing companies should start from various links and propose corresponding measures to strengthen the cost control of printing enterprises.

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