This MedLibrary.org supplementary page on Rotary printing press is provided directly from the open source Wikipedia as a service to our readers. Please see the note below on authorship of this content, as well as the Wikipedia usage guidelines. To search for other content from our encyclopedia supplement, please use the form below:
Related Sponsors
 |
This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. (February 2007) |
|
Part of the series on the |
||
| Woodblock printing | 200 CE | |
| Movable type | 1040 | |
| Intaglio | 1430s | |
| Printing press | 1439 | |
| Lithography | 1796 | |
| Chromolithography | 1837 | |
| Rotary press | 1843 | |
| Flexography | 1873 | |
| Mimeograph | 1876 | |
| Linotype typesetting | 1886 | |
| Offset press | 1903 | |
| Screen-printing | 1907 | |
| Dye-sublimation | 1957 | |
| Photocopier | 1960s | |
| Pad printing | 1960s | |
| Laser printer | 1969 | |
| Dot matrix printer | 1970 | |
| Thermal printer | ||
| Inkjet printer | 1976 | |
| 3D printing | 1986 | |
| Stereolithography | 1986 | |
| Digital press | 1993 | |
A rotary printing press is a printing press in which the images to be printed are curved around a cylinder. Printing can be done on large number of substrates paper, cardboard, plastic. Substrates can be sheet feed or unwound on a continuous roll through the press to be printed and further modified if required (die cut, overprint varnish, embossing). Printing presses that use continuous rolls are sometimes referred to as "web presses". Rotary drum printing was invented by Richard March Hoe, and then slightly improved by William Bullock
Specific wallpaper printing machines, using mostly wooden printing cylinders
Today, there are three main types of rotary presses; offset commonly known as web offset, rotogravure, and flexo (short for flexography). While the three types use cylinders to print, they vary in their method.
Offset lithography uses a chemical process which an image is chemically applied to a plate (generally through exposure of photosensitive layers on the plate material). Lithography is based on the fact that water and oil do not mix, which enables the planographic process to work. In the context of a printing plate, a wettable surface (the non-image area) may also be termed hydrophilic and (the image area) a non-wettable surface hydrophobic.
Gravure is a process in which small cells or holes are etched into a copper cylinder which is filled with ink.
Flexography is a relief system in which a raised image is created on a typically polymer based plate.
In stamp collecting, rotary-press-printed stamps are sometimes a different size than stamps printed with a flat plate. This happens because the stamp images are further apart on a rotary press, which makes the individual stamps larger (typically 1/2 mm to 1 mm).
See also
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 21 October 2008, at 08:37.
Wikipedia Authorship and Review
Wikipedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by MedLibrary.org. Wikipedia content is authored by an open community of volunteers and is not produced by or in any way affiliated with MedLibrary.org.
Wikipedia Usage Guidelines
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "Rotary printing press".
The URL for this specific entry is:
All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details). Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.