Prepress

The pre-press, also known as press, is a sub-process in the industrial printing industry and has replaced the former name reproduction technology. This is a summary of all processes prior to printing, such as scanning work, data editing, retouching and image editing, layout, imposition, computer -to-film or CTF, and today, depending on the printing method in offset printing plate exposure or Computer to Plate (CTP) and the gravure printing, the electro-mechanical or laser engraving of the printing cylinder. The goal is to create a print form for the appropriate printing method.

The purpose of the pre-press is to bring together text, images and graphics to artwork and prepare for printing. In this case, data implemented by ad agencies, publishers, or come directly from the customer, the computers into printable data for the printing process. The final product was previously mostly a film or a PostScript file, today ( 2012) is predominantly a PDF file.

Print job

In general, it is decided even before the award of the contract, which printing process to print. Here, the offset receives the largest volume of orders, followed by gravure printing, flexographic printing and other printing processes. The printing company should receive the key information from the customer prior to contract award, including the circulation, of the substrate (paper, cardboard or plastic ), the number and type of printing inks, further processing and possibly a packing list.

Software

Among the common programs prepress include in desktop publishing, so the layout and page assembly, QuarkXPress and Adobe InDesign. In addition to these proprietary programs also the free program Scribus is used and the free typesetting system LaTeX is often used for scientific texts with high demands on the typographic quality. More Graphics software is, for example, Adobe Photoshop, which is used in image processing as well as the free GIMP, as well as Illustrator, Freehand, CorelDraw, ragtime or the free Inkscape, which are used primarily for the production of drawings. The purported imposition combining and arranging pages on the press sheet is happening nowadays usually use special imposition software like ApogeeX ( AGFA ), Prinect Signa Station ( HEIDELBERG ) Preps (Kodak), GRAPHIAware Nicola ( GRAPHIA ) or Imposition Publisher ( Farrukh Systems ).

Database Publishing

To the most advanced approaches in this area include the data-driven publishing ( Database Publishing), can be generated in the fully automates complex documents. This is made possible by rule sets in which layout rules are mapped explicitly. A 100 percent automation is already possible if the data to be published prestructured present. Systems such as DocScape or Corel Ventura allow such an approach and some cases lead to considerable savings in prepress.

Jobs in prepress

The sooner numerous professions in prepress, of which there is no longer the majority, digital and print are in Germany since 2007 under the name Mediengestalter summarized. There are three disciplines, namely, consultation and planning, design and visualization, as well as design and technology. In general, a three-year training period. In Switzerland, the professional title of " polygraph " is used. There are only two disciplines, media production and media design. In Austria, there is still the profession of prepress technician who is separated from the media technician. The dual system of vocational training in the same teaching and lasts 3 ½ years.