

Roller or cylinder printing – Sometimes called machine printing, this is a gravure printing process used for printing on textiles.Pad printing is limited to small surfaces and used to print watch dials, gadgets, toys, car parts, etc. An image is transferred from an engraved printing plate onto a three-dimensional surface using a silicone pad. Pad printing – This is also called tampography.Nowadays it is mainly an artisanal process used for upscale business cards and wedding invitations, fine editions of books, limited-run art projects,… Letterpress – This relief printing technique dominated the industry until the early 20th century.Intaglio – nowadays mainly used for stamps and paper currency.The mostwell-known use case is iron-on decorations for t-shirts but the process is also used for industrial applications. Heat transfer printing – A special paper is printed using inkjet (or another technique) and then this print is transferred to another surface using heat and pressure.


That cylinder is inked and this ink subsequently transfers to the paper. Īlso known as rotogravure, this is a technique in which an image is engraved into a printing cylinder. It is used in some proofing devices but seems to be gradually disappearing off the market.
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This process is used in cash registers but also to add markings, such as serial numbers,to products.

In offset lithography, a printing plate, which is most often made from aluminum, contains an image of the content that needs to be printed. Why a certain job is better printed using one of these processes mentioned can be read on this page about choosing a printing process. These include flock printing, letterpress, intaglio, pad printing, and thermography. The main industrial printing processes are:Īdditional printing techniques were developed for very specific applications. There is a wide variety of technologies that are used to print magazines, books, newspapers, stationery, posters, packaging, and other print products.
