The Development of CTP Technology and Its Influence on Publishing and Distribution (I)

Abstract : CTP technology is an advanced digital printing platemaking technology. Its development and application have attracted widespread attention in academia and publishing industry. This article first introduced the meaning of CTP technology and the necessity of its emergence and development. Then through the comparative study of data, analyzed the impact of CTP technology on China's publishing and distribution work, and finally looked forward to the development prospects of CTP technology.

Keywords: CTP technology, publishing

CTP (Computer-to-Plate) technology is an advanced printing platemaking technology that appeared in the 1980s. When CTP technology came into being, it was not mature either in terms of technology or quality of platemaking. In the 1990s, the close cooperation between equipment manufacturers and printers accelerated the pace of research and development of CTP technology and enabled CTP technology to reach the level of industrial application.

I. Introduction to CTP Technology

The CTP technology mentioned here refers to the computer-to-platemaking technology, also known as laser platemaking technology. It is a new type of plate-making method that directly processes the entire page of text, images, and format data processed by the computer and processed directly through laser scanning, etc. It is a comprehensive technical method. It has a broad meaning. From the perspective, it includes four aspects:

l, ComputerToPlate (computer-to-plate), namely off-line direct plate making technology;

2, ComputerToPress (digital printing), that is, direct computer-to-plate technology directly from the computer to the printing press;

3, ComputerToPaper/Print (on-machine printing), that is, direct printing technology from the computer directly to paper or printed products;

4, ComputerToProof (digital proofing), that is, the computer directly sample.

Narrow CTP technology, which is what people talk about as CTP technology, usually refers to off-line computer-to-plate technology.

The following diagram compares the process flow of CTP technology with the process flow of the traditional plate making technology (CTF), and through comparison can clearly understand the operation of CTP technology in the publishing and printing process.

Second, the emergence and development of CTP technology inevitability

CTP technology has only been around for nearly 20 years from its infancy, but it has developed very rapidly. According to the survey of GATF, the printing technology authority of the United States, in 1995, there were 311 CTP systems installed in the world, increasing to 12,150 by the year 2000, and the growth rate was nearly 40 times. What makes this technology popularized and applied at such an alarming rate in the publishing and printing industry? The author analyzes the inevitability of the appearance and development of CTP technology:

2.1 The inevitable trend of the digital age

The 21st century is a century of digitization, and digitization will also become an inevitable trend in the development of the publishing and printing industry. With the increasing development of science and technology, new publishing methods based on digital technologies have emerged in an endless stream. As for publication carriers, in addition to traditional paper publications, electronic publications, network transmission publications, and downloadable personal PDAs have appeared. In the publications and so on. The production process of paper publications is also changing in the direction of digitization and electronicization. From the creation, editing, proofreading, production of production, information distribution, ordering, and delivery, all the information in the publication is in the form of a digitized binary code. Stored in magnetic, optical, and electronic memory for transfer, processing, and application. Printing platemaking, as an important part of the prepress technology of publications, must keep up with the pace of technological development. If traditional offset plate-making techniques are still used in digital publishing, it will inevitably make the printing links difficult to meet the requirements of efficient, rapid and instant digital publication. , to make the digital publishing workflow out of touch.

Therefore, CTP technology should become the hotspot and focus of the introduction of new technologies in the printing industry today. If the laser photocopying technology allows printing to bid farewell to the “lead and fire” era, then it can be said that CTP technology is an important part of the “digital” era in the printing industry. It makes the traditional printing industry and high technology more perfect. The integration has far-reaching significance.

2.2 The Inevitable Requirements for Publishing and Printing Enterprises to Participate in Market Competition

At present, publishing and printing companies are faced with increasingly fierce challenges and competitions. Traditional print services featuring the seller's market are quietly changing, and customers have more initiative and choice. Between mainland and coastal publishing and printing enterprises, between mainland publishing companies and Hong Kong and Taiwan publishing and printing companies, the competition between domestic publishing and printing enterprises and foreign publishing and printing companies has become increasingly fierce. In order to meet the increasingly high printing requirements of customers, they must continuously improve the printing quality, speed up the printing speed, and establish a good reputation among customers. On the other hand, social culture is continuously progressing and development, the content of cultural knowledge is becoming more and more abundant, the speed of renewal is getting faster and faster, and people's demand for cultural knowledge has shifted towards diversification and individualization. In response to this, the production cycle of publications must be shortened and the timeliness should be improved. If it is still the same approach as before, it will take a year or two for a book to be printed. Such a printing and printing company will certainly be eliminated by the market.

Therefore, publishing and printing companies have introduced CTP technology so that the company's operations will gradually transition to the direction of digitalization, which will bring new profit growth points to enterprises and increase their strength in market competition.

2.3 Compared with the traditional plate making technology, CTP technology has unsurpassed superiority

2.3.1 Simplified Process Flow

From the previous figure, we can see that the CTP technology eliminates the four steps of printing film, punching, printing, and printing plates that are to be passed in the traditional printing plate. It can be directly transmitted to the computer after the layout is prepared in the computer. Printed on the printer without the intermediary of many media. In this way, not only the saving of film materials but also the manpower cost is saved, which is more conducive to the integration of production. In addition, layouts made using CTP technology can be used repeatedly to increase the utilization of the same layout.

2.3.2 Improve Print Quality

The remarkable printing adaptability of CTP technology is unmatched by traditional printing plates. For example, the quality of the dot is high, the plate layout produced by the CTP system is very clean, and there are no losses in the dots of transitional transition and highlights. The ink on the ground is even and full; the precision of the printing is higher, and the printed matter is basically unchanged from the proofs. In addition, due to the elimination of the printing section, it also avoids many image problems related to printing, such as flower marks, misregistration, dot variation, and dot inconsistency caused by differences in exposure time of printing plates.

2.3.3 speed up the operation

The workflow of CTP technology is digital and end-to-end, and waiving the film, buyers can modify the manuscript when they are closer to the production line. In addition, fewer steps are required for digital manuscripts, which is faster than traditional filmmaking based on film, and the printing plate imaging is also complete. Few printing plates need to be rebuilt. Therefore, using the CTP system can greatly shorten the prepress processing, and can complete the printing task with better quality in a shorter time.