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Print Production Craft

The practical craft behind professional print production.

17 posts · Engineering

  1. 1

    How to Use This Guide

    Welcome. If you write software for a living and have just been handed a print-shop product to build — orders, products, pricing, file uploads, production…
  2. 2

    How Printing Really Works — The Big Picture

    If you build software, you have probably "printed" a thousand times: you hit a button, a file leaves your computer, and a sheet slides out of a machine on your…
  3. 3

    Offset Lithography — The Workhorse of Commercial Print

    If you have ever held a glossy magazine, a thick mail-order catalog, a paperback novel, a cereal box, or a stack of full-color brochures, you have almost…
  4. 4

    Digital Printing — Toner, Inkjet & Variable Data

    In the last chapter you met offset printing — the workhorse that needs metal plates, a long setup, and a big run to be worth it. Now meet its opposite.
  5. 5

    Screen, DTG, DTF & Pad — Apparel, Promo & Specialty

    So far you have mostly thought about ink on paper. This chapter moves to a different world: putting a design onto a T-shirt, a hoodie, a coffee mug, a pen, or…
  6. 6

    Wide-Format & Flexography — Signage, Banners, Packaging & Labels

    So far we've mostly talked about putting ink on paper at "normal" sizes. This chapter steps into two very different worlds that you, as someone building…
  7. 7

    Color, Files & Prepress — CMYK, Pantone, Bleed, Proofs & Preflight

    So far you have learned about paper, presses, and finishing. This chapter is about the step that sits between a finished design file and ink actually hitting…
  8. 8

    Substrates & Materials — Paper, GSM, Coatings & Specialty Stocks

    A substrate is simply the material you print on — paper, cardstock, plastic film, vinyl, or board.
  9. 9

    Finishing & Bindery — Everything After the Press

    The press lays ink on paper. But a stack of flat, ink-covered sheets is not yet a business card, a brochure, or a book.
  10. 10

    Print Shop Operations — Workflow, Imposition, Batching & Turnaround

    You can model a beautiful product, take a clean order, and capture a perfect file — and still ship late or lose money. Why?
  11. 11

    Print Shop Economics — Costing, Make-Ready, Margins & Quoting

    Up to now you have learned how ink lands on paper. This chapter is about how a print shop turns that craft into a business that survives.
  12. 12

    Supply Chain, Logistics & Fulfillment for Print

    You can print the most beautiful brochure in the world, but the customer never sees it until it lands on their doorstep — intact, on time, and without a…
  13. 13

    Sustainability & Eco-Printing

    Walk into almost any print buyer's office today — a corporate marketing manager, a school administrator, a government procurement officer — and somewhere in…
  14. 14

    Putting It Together — Modeling Print in Software (PF360 lens)

    Every earlier chapter taught you a piece of the print craft: paper, color, presses, finishing, files, shipping. This chapter is the synthesis.
  15. 15

    Glossary of Terms

    4/0 (four over zero) A printing spec meaning full color (4 inks: CMYK) on the front and nothing on the back.
  16. 16

    Frequently Asked Questions

    These are the questions a software builder almost always asks when they first start modeling print. The answers are deliberately plain-English and practical.
  17. 17

    Revision Cheat Sheet

    A dense, scannable one-stop reference. Skim it before a meeting, a build session, or a quote. Printing-Process Selector Job Volume Best process Why Business…