Digital Printing
So we could really disect this phrase into two parts and get the technical defintion of it, yes? Well, without going into a dictionary, we know that “digital” means not analog - comprised of 1’s and 0’s. Something in a digital format usually means that it can be transfered onto and out of a computer or any manner of other “digital” devices. CD’s are digital, cassette tapes are analog.

Printing is printing, right? I mean, could Xerox call their equipment “printing machines”? Would they want to? Printing really means a transfer of images and/or text by a mechanical process. So the term printing is pretty wide open.

The Bumpy Ride to Digital

In relation to traditional printing, which is a very analog process, there are a few levels of digital-ness. First, along came the Mac Plus. Instead of physically typesetting brochures, letterheads and the like (originally wood type), an operator would sit in front of a green computer screen, hammering out the next set of stationery for Al Gore. When you were satisfied with the text, it would spit out some printing material. But, you still had to shoot it with a camera, to make film, to make plates. It took a while, but soon you could simply send the information into the plate maker, eliminating the need for space hungry graphic arts cameras, processing rooms, vaccum tables, etc. About the same time, the figured “well if we can print it onto a plate, lets make it print it onto a plate while the plate is on the press.” True digital printing was born, most successfully the Heidelberg Quickmaster DI which uses a waterless inking system, special plates that are retained inside the press, a make-ready of about 12 minutes, and the possibility of true short-run digital offset printing.

The whole move to intel based chips is a risky one, but I think Apple is doing it at the right time. All these people who want to have both windows and Mac OS can now do so on one computer. Even though Apple has always been more of a hardware company than a software company, I think that over the past few years with the introduction of iLife software, they are really leading the movement of personal computing. No one has any excuses anymore. Just go ahead and get a mac and start realizing what you’ve been missing out on all these years.

My next challenge, I’m going to see if I can find a pc laptop and put Tiger on it. Really, it shouldn’t be much different from the MacBook, other than a few hardware differences. From what I’ve read, it performs just as well as a native machine (running Tiger). I hope that this intel move will get Apple in a position to pull more of the marketshare. Wouldn’t it be crazy if Apple was at 10%, 30%, or even 50%? Granted, it would take decades, but still…

Basis Weight

Basis Weight is the designation given to a sheet of paper in terms of the weight of 500 sheets (a ream) in the standard size for that grade. For instance, the basis size for offset is 25″ x 38″, bond is 17″ x 22″, and bristol is 22.5″ x 28.5″. Don’t worry, there are a few more sizes to make things difficult. So, if you have some 80# bond, that means that 500 sheets measuring 17″ x 22″ weighs 80 lbs. Easy? Sure. Confusing? It can be.

Here are the 7 most common basic sizes:

Book
25″ x 38″

Bond & Writing
17″ x 22″

Cover
20″ x 26″

Postcard, Vellum & Bristol
22.5″ x 28.5″

Printing Bristol
23″ x 35″

Index
25.5″ x 30.5″

Tag, Newsprint & Waxing
24″ x 36″

I’ll have more articles on paper weights, lengths, thickness, etc. in the future, so stay tuned!