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The book printing industry offers a vast array of processes to print a book. The type of process used depends on the outcome required and this is often driven by the type of surface the print is to be applied to. The physical characteristics of the surface – the media – dictates what print process is used. Some of those print processes like Gravure are practically redundant, that is, no longer widely used commercially because of practical and economic factors. Book printing is dominated by:
- Lithography which uses a flat printing surface sometimes referred to as being planographic, that is everything is flat. The image is transferred from a metal plate to a rubber blanket then to paper. The root meaning of “litho” is stone and “graphy” means inscription. In modern printing the inscription in stone has been replaced with an inscription in metal.
- digital printing which uses a flat printing surface, the image being applied to paper by one of two main methods – wet toner or dry toner.
Today these two dominant methods of print sit comfortably side-by-side with the quality of digital print and lithographic print being indiscernible to the uninitiated.