Web printing issues

[Linna p]

Hi there, we are a designing company outsourcing our printing requirements, I recently had a run of booklets printed with web printing method due to to the amount of pages and units, the booklets arrived and their covers are 1mm to 3mm shorter than the inner pages, I have contacted the printers and they said that the inners were printed as a web printing while covers were printed wit a different process and with the heat of the web printing process the inners tend to "grow" after printing and trimming, I have never seen this happening before and my question to you is: is this really to be expected from web printing or is this careless production from printers? What are the trade standards on this type of printing?

Thank you in advance

[terrie]

Paper can indeed "stretch" when printing depending on the paper and the press but I've never heard of paper stretching when trimmed. In any case, that's no excuse for what you have received as experienced printers know their equipment and adjust accordingly so I'd say it's careless production.

Hopefully someone else will chime in on trade standards...


Welcome to the forum...'-}}



Terrie

[Steve Rindsberg]

A semi-random thought from someone who's hung around print production people but isn't one:

Since the cover has to wrap around the entire thickness of the printed book(let), it needs to be slightly larger or the inner pages need to be trimmed. I'd think that a good printer/bindery would advise you of potential problems with your design before starting in on production.

However, if you're using a very inexpensive printer, one of the ways they may lower their costs is by skipping any pre-production checking and printing exactly what the designer sends them. The savings are yours but so is the responsibility for getting it right, start to finish.

[Bo Aakerstrom]

The printer's lame attempt of trying to explain away the discrepancy tells me it is really their fault.

[Steve Rindsberg]

Argument? From me? You'll have none of THAT, sir.