Jobs in Printing Technology

Prnting jobs cover the range of prepres, press, bindery and sales/customer service.

Printing is a ubiquitous term covering a wide array of technologies and trades. Ranging from mass production offset, flexographic and intaglio printing to more specialized letterpress and giclée prints, there are many jobs and careers in printing. No matter what media (i.e., paper, cloth, metal), all printing involves the same basic types of jobs: pre-press for people who produce type, graphic images and press-ready plates, screens or raised type to carry ink; press operators who put the media into the press and apply the ink, and post-press where paper or other media is cut, folded, glued and bound.

Pre-press

Pre-press jobs can be very specialized or one person can do all the jobs, depending on the size of the printing business. Pre-press jobs include setting type, sizing and cropping photographs and other graphic images, designing and laying out type and graphics for press production and making the plates or raised type, depending on the printing process. Oftentimes the pre-press job involves working directly with customers on suggestions, ideas, desires and proofing and approving work for final production. Additionally, some printing technologies (offset, letterpress, flexographic, intaglio, screen) involve working with large cameras to produce negative film images needed for producing printing plates. Creating overlays of these negative taped and cut into large sheets of paper to cover and expose the plates is called "stripping."

Press Operators

Press operators load presses with paper or printers with rolls of paper, set up the press, install and remove printing plates, run the paper through the press and apply ink (or inks if the job is multi-colored) and then remove the paper from the press. Also included in the press operator's job is maintaining and cleaning the press. Press operators must also have a good eye for detail as they measure and adjust ink density on the press to maintain or correct color.

Post-press

Post-press jobs include cutters who take large sheets of paper and cut them down to smaller sizes, folder operators who operate the high-speed folding machines and bindery help. Bindery help includes jobs operating high-speed collating and stitching machines (for turning folded pages into bound books), drills for putting holes in stacks of paper, and padding, which is gluing one side of a stack of paper and then separating the stack when the glue dries to produce note pads, multi-part forms and bound books. Bindery help can also do manual work when materials are suitable for the automated machines. This can include collating, numbering, stitching and trimming.

Sales

Print sales jobs involve inside customer relations, outside business-to-business sales, marketing, Internet communications and independent contractors. Sales jobs can be as simple as order taking or as complicated as sales managers with a staff of sales people.

Occasional Labor

Print shops use occasional labor to supplement full-time workers, usually in the post-press department. The need for many hands moving lots of paper means bringing in extra help on a regular basis. In many instances these occasional workers use the opportunity of working in the printing facility to learn the industry and become valuable enough to get full-time work.