Status of Beijing Printing Industry and Technology Development in 2010 (II)

In the mid-1980s, with the successful development of the Huaguang laser photocopying system, Beijing's book printing companies moved from manual photocopying to laser photocopying. By the early 1990s, books and periodicals printing companies basically eliminated the lead discharge process. Large and medium-sized companies generally adopted laser photocopying technology, bid farewell to lead and fire, and moved toward light and electricity.
The Beijing book industry has experienced manual color separation and photo color separation in color printing. In the 60s, the Beijing printing industry began to introduce electronic color separation machines. In the 1980s, different types of electronic color separation machines were introduced from Germany, the United Kingdom, and Japan, which changed the Beijing platemaking technology. In the early 1990s, with the popularity of the color desktop system, the monopoly position of the electronic color separation machine in the color platemaking market was broken for a long time, and a revolutionary change took place in China's color platemaking field. Since the mid-1990s, Beijing has gradually eliminated the pure electronic separation process, and the color platemaking technology has reached a high level.
The major reform of typesetting technology will inevitably bring about new breakthroughs in printing technology. With the promotion of laser photocopying technology, offset printing has continued to develop, and printing has been eliminated in Beijing books and periodicals, and lead printing has been eliminated. In the early 1990s, the transition to offset printing was completed. Now, there are 303 multi-color offset presses in printing companies, and the color printing capacity basically meets the needs of the society. Printing quality has seen a leap forward.
Beijing's post-press processing technology began in the mid-1980s with the development of a single, multi-variety, high-grade, high-precision, and sharp-point processing. More than 10 high- and medium-speed linkage production lines have been introduced, such as the KOLBUS hardcover linkage production line, Martini's flat binding wireless binding production line, etc., which are used in conjunction with a variety of advanced stand-alone machines to adapt to the short-lived version of the publication in Beijing. The need for many special-shaped and large-size productions, fine products and hardcover books has greatly shortened the printing production cycle, and the quality of binding has greatly improved.
In the past 20 years, the printing and printing industry in Beijing has made great achievements in typography and packaging. The publication cycle of books and periodicals has been shortened to 30 days (7-10 days in special cases). The quality of printed materials has greatly improved, and some of them have reached or reached the level of advanced countries and Hong Kong SAR of China, and the encyclopedias of China have been published. The great dictionary of Chinese language, the full-text of Chinese art and so on have had an important influence at home and abroad.
2. The development of newspaper printing technology Beijing has centralized the printing of 13 major central newspapers, ministries, agencies, and municipal newspapers, and has become a publishing, printing, and distribution center for newspapers and periodicals in China. Since the 7th five-year period, the state has formulated a plan for the transformation of news and newspaper printing technology centered on Beijing, and has used the most advanced technology to arm Beijing's major newspaper printing factories. In the early 1980s, the People's Daily Printing Company introduced an ultra-high speed offset printing press, which provided Beijing with experience in offset printing of newspapers. In early 1985, the printing house of Xinhua News Agency first tried the Huaguang II computer laser photocopying system in the national newspaper printing factory, making the domestic computer laser photocopying system reach the practical stage. In August 1988, the printing company of the Economic Daily News first used a domestic computer laser photocopying system to organize newspapers and became the first printing company that did not use lead. By the early 1990s, Beijing's newspaper printing houses had all adopted laser photocopying, realizing the shift from heat to cold, from lead printing to offset printing. In black-and-white printing, traditional photoengraving techniques have been eliminated and image scanning techniques have been commonly used. In terms of color platemaking, traditional photo separations and pure electronic color separation processes have been eliminated, and color desktop systems have generally been adopted. Beijing Daily Printing Co., Ltd. installed the CTP system in May 1999 and digitalized the prepress process.
In terms of printing technology, newspaper printing companies have eliminated the use of lead printing and resin printing and achieved offset printing, and have transitioned from monochrome machines to multicolor, automated web offset presses. In recent years, newspaper printing equipment has increased rapidly, and many factories have introduced multi-color web offset presses. The large and medium-sized machines in use include Gaussian and Manroland products. The minicomputers include Sauna, Beiren and Shanghai Gaussian products. According to the reports, some of the newspapers in the country that were issued by the National People’s Government printed off-site printing to achieve satellite transmission and telephone transmission, eliminating the use of microwaves to transmit layouts, aircrafts, and trains to transport paper. After two years of technological transformation, the Beijing newspaper printing factory has undergone earth-shaking changes, newspaper printing volume has increased, color newspapers have developed milk, and continue to the two-sided color development, newspaper printing quality has improved significantly. In the print quality evaluation of the major newspapers in China conducted by the China Press Association, there are three black-and-white newspapers in Beijing that are of high quality: the People's Daily, the Liberation Army Daily, and the Economic Daily.
The progress of printing technology in Beijing newspapers has brought significant social and economic benefits to the printing houses of the newspapers. The publishing efficiency has advanced and the quality of printing has improved. Beijing newspaper printing technology has reached the world advanced level.