Production and Printing Process of Short Version of Sample Book (1)

The publisher has been paying attention to the digital printing program for short-length books for a long time. The author is very interested in this, so he visited the ODI Business Services Co., Ltd. and China Knowledge, which is relatively early and relatively good in the on-demand short-run book publishing market. The property publishing house understood and experienced the production process of the short version of the sample book. During this period, they were supported by Duan Danxing, vice president of the National Intellectual Property Publishing House, and Mr. Li Zhaohui, the Oudi company. They have great experience and creativity in making short-length sample books. In this essay, share with friends who are interested in short-length books.

Into the short-page book printing workshop of Beijing Zhongxian Tuofang Electronic Printing Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of China Intellectual Property Publishing House, two Fuji Xerox DocuTech 6135 black-and-white digital printing presses are “printing on demand” Chinese classified patent books, 1 Taiwan's DocuColor 2060 color digital press is making up a record company's brochure. Here I have seen sample books and personalized books printed using these three sets of digital printing systems, which are completely comparable to the finished books. One of them is for children. The beautifully produced commemorative album is very distinctive.

Digital printing system

First, the book can not be separated from the equipment, vice president of the Intellectual Property Publishing Division introduced, the company's two DocuTech 6135 black and white digital printing press work 7 hours a day, every month (22 working days) printing 1 million pages (A4 format) , equivalent to 2,500 short-page books of 400 pages.

The DocuTech 6135 consists of a controller, a print engine section, a paper feeding mechanism, a delivery mechanism, and a binding mechanism.

The controller is the heart of the digital printer. Its task is to accept, interpret, and direct. All these functions are done synchronously. Fuji Xerox's high-speed printer controller uses a powerful Sun workstation as a platform on which Xerox's controller software, DocuSP, is installed and is called a DocuSP workstation. The engine's function is to apply toner to paper. The DocuTech 6100/6135 quickly completes the process of developing, fixing, etc. printing (96 pages per minute, 135 pages per A4). The cost per print (including toner and other consumables) is low, and the consistency of print quality is good. The machine can accept a variety of different thicknesses of paper, with a low paper jam rate and smooth running without stopping.

The paper supply and take-up agencies also take full account of the requirements of the production environment. The capacity of the loading tray is large and the unattended time is extended. Paper suction adopts the principle of suction to prevent jams and double sheets. Multiple paper feed points can use different papers in one job. The insert paper feed module is designed for preprinted paper to prevent damage to preprinted products. If necessary, there is a roll paper feed mechanism that can supply more than 50,000 papers at a time to ensure uninterrupted printing. In addition to the standard two 3000 stacking racks, the delivery section can be stacked in a wrong position, as well as a large-capacity delivery unit that can receive 5000 sheets of A3 paper at a time. The online binding function is designed to increase productivity. On-line flat-sheet, hot-melt adhesives can meet most of the common document binding requirements. Coupled with the saddle stitching or wireless binding, it can meet the requirements of large-scale digital document production. The DocuTech 6135 has a printing accuracy of 600 dpi x 1200 dpi and a maximum printing width of A3+.

Digital front-end processing

The original manuscript for the on-demand publication must be an electronic document, and the desktop publishing system is indispensable. In addition, professional high-precision scanners are very important for use with OCR software, such as copying of out-of-print books.

DigiPath, an electronic document front-end processing system, is tasked with receiving electronic files of books and integrating them into a format and layout that meets requirements for outputting printed documents.

With regard to several considerations regarding the file format, to produce professional-level books, professional procedures and methods must be adopted from the source. Domestic custom book layout formats and Chinese character processing methods are reflected in the professional book publishing process. Publishers generally use Founder's book format software for typesetting. Professional book and book printing houses can certainly accept the documents of Founder's edition. Many quick print shops rarely use book format software to typeset. They often require publishers to provide PageMaker or Word files. This has hit the enthusiasm of publishers and it is also difficult to achieve layout professionalism. From the very beginning, it has not taken the right steps.

The company uses Founder's smooth flow process software to convert all types of Founder typesetting files provided by the publishing house into PDF format. This not only preserves the professional typographic layout and many names, place names and rare words, but also provides Great convenience, but also for the press to provide remote proofing, remote proofing services, but also in the future when large-scale printing directly PDF, no need to re-RIP printers. The China Intellectual Property Publishing House also uses the converted PS file format and PDF file format for further printing.

It is better not to use professional processing software such as Word to produce professional books. It is not because Word's typesetting function is not powerful enough. It is because users often do not know how to use Word's powerful features to achieve a professional layout that meets Chinese reading habits, including words. Distance, spacing, etc. And software like Founder Edition has been automatically considered in these areas.

Another issue to note in the file format is the format conversion of the cover. The situation on the front cover is even more complicated. Some of them are made by software such as Founder Feiteng and some are commissioned by advertising companies, usually using Adobe's typesetting software. When converting to PDF format, pay attention to some settings in the process of turning that affect accuracy and fonts, etc., to ensure that the precision when printing, fonts are not missing.

(to be continued)