The commercial printing industry is a huge industry, and even though there are a lot more digital copies of books and magazines these days, the printing industry is still a very lucrative and fast evolving business. There is a large variety of commercial printing services offered to customers, ranging from services offered by large commercial printing companies to small color photocopying that can be done in a local convenience store.
Asian countries, such as Taiwan, China and Vietnam are well known for their good quality, yet cheap printing services. While countries such as Germany and other European countries also have a great reputation for print quality, their prices are edging them out of the competitive printing market, especially the worldwide market. Modern technological advances have revolutionized the printing industry in recent years, to the point that print quality has never been as good as it is now. Improved technology has also meant that the speed at which print jobs are now finished is vastly improved over what it was even five years ago.
The advent of commercial digital printing is what has made such a difference in the print industry. These days commercial printing equipment is largely all computerized, especially in large printing companies. The new computer to plate (CTP) technology that was introduced in the early 1990′s was a major breakthrough in the commercial offset printing industry. It is now possible for data to be sent directly from a computer to a printing press, without the image needing to first be imprinted on plates. 
This has been advantageous in many ways. It has meant that much finer and higher quality printing can be done. It has also significantly decreased the length of time it takes for a print run to be completed. It has made it much easier to personalize printing and it is now much cheaper to have smaller print runs, as the cost of producing plates has been eliminated from the procedure.
Commercial printing equipment is very diverse, with the size and abilities of presses differing greatly. On one end of the spectrum you can find the huge multi-colored presses that are used for extremely large runs of colored magazines and newspapers. On the other end you have the small digital presses that handle small jobs such as invitations and cards, or other small print items.
If you are looking for a commercial printing company to handle some of your work, there are some things that you may want to take into consideration before going ahead with it. Most of the larger companies offering commercial offset printing do have modern equipment, but it is always a good idea to ask not only what they have by way of printing equipment, but also specifically what equipment they will use for your job. Of course, if you only have a small run of something, it may not matter. But if you are printing a glossy magazine, or a book with color prints, or even your company’s promotional brochure, you will want the assurance that they will use one of their better presses to print with.
Commercial color printing is cheaper these days than it used to be, but there can still be hidden costs, and you will still be charged additionally for any mistakes that were made on your end. For example, if you do not give clear and specific instructions to the printing company regarding things such as lamination, the type of binding you want, whether you want a matte or glossy finish, any spot U.V. etc., you will have to take responsibility if the production does not turn out exactly as you had thought it would. It is always a very good idea, if you are using a commercial printing service, to ask to see proof sheets of all they are printing for you before they go to press with their larger, final run. If the publication is a multi-page publication, you should also ask that they assemble the proof copy as well, so that you can see that all of the pages are in the correct order.
The commercial printing business is a fast paced industry, especially since the breakthrough of digital printing. The computer industry has completely changed the way commercial print productions are done. Now, with every technological and computer advancement, there is a corresponding advancement in the printing world. This has also greatly changed the makeup of the employee pools working in the print industry as well. Now, the blue collar press operator has been replaced by the computer graphic design artist and the high tech digital press operator. People who were involved in the printing industry for years have had to either take a crash course in technology or have had to stand aside and let those who are more knowledgeable take their place.
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