With increasing digitization, there has been a surge in demand for digital printing rather than traditional printing. While there are several advantages of digital printing over traditional printing, we have discussed some advantages that explain why more and more organizations and professionals are opting for modern digital printing.
Advantages of Digital Printing
Amazing Quality
- Registration: Digital print has perfect color registration. This is the only method of printing that can achieve this.
- 100% consistency: When your orders run every time after the initial, the output will match the original.
- There are no sharp lines like in traditional flexographic printing.
- Trapping Traditional printing requires that colors be trapped together to hide normal color registration movement. This results in lines where colors overlap. Digital requires zero trapping. This allows you to create a more attractive label.
- The output of printed graphics is unmatched as long as the artwork is high-resolution and properly prepared.
Lower costs for low volumes than traditional printing
- No need for printing plates. This saves money on prepress costs. You can often get your entire digital order for less than what you paid for plates and films for traditional printing.
- Machine setup takes much less. Low volumes of traditional presses would require more time to set up than print. It takes hours to set up and only minutes to print. You can cut down on the machine setup and save many custom label costs.
- No Color Change-Overs and Plates It can be quite a hassle to shut down a traditional press to change a plate or color. You can either add the downtime to your label cost or charge it separately. It can quickly add up if you have many items. Digital printing charges a minimal item change-over fee. This is a fraction of what you would pay for a traditional press change.
- Press proofs for digital printing cost only a fraction of traditional presses. A press proof can be printed at a fraction of the cost of setting up a large press. There are no plates or prepress.
Variable Data Flexibility or Multiple Versions
- Digital printing can be converted to a new label in minutes if the dies and material sizes remain the same. This is significantly faster than traditional presses. You get to keep your time and money. You save more money by not wasting material on a changeover.
- Variable data capabilities are amazing on digital presses. Let’s suppose that each digital item needs a unique number. It’s not a problem. Digital presses can read data from a database and print it on beautiful graphics labels.
- The press will continue to run as long as it has variable information pulled from a database. The machine will stop if it switches to a different label or tag version. This allows items of any volume to remain separate on the floor. We wouldn’t want your vitamin C or vitamin D labels mixed up.
Short Lead Times
- Digital orders can be delivered faster thanks to the elimination of printing plates and reduced setup time.
Design and Revision of Artwork
- Digital is great for testing market applications. Digital printing is great for smaller quantities. It is the best option if you are looking to make prototypes or test small market quantities. This makes your Marketing Department happy, and your Accounting Department happy.
Benefits of digital printing
- Multifunctional
Many improvements have been made to digital printers through innovations in printer technology. Multifunctionality is one of their most popular features. You can order customized envelopes, letterheads, and business cards all from the same device. These are like a full-service printing shop in a small box.
- Faster turnaround
Although it is possible to print large quantities of business cards, thank-you notes, and invitations quickly using an offset printing press,it can take a while to set up. However, digital printers can produce shorter-run jobs faster than offset. Digital printers can produce short-run jobs in full colour or black and white much faster than offset.
- Increased Throughput
Offset printing presses use printing plates with wet ink. This means that printed collateral must dry before any finishing can be done. Digital printers produce dry stock that can be folded, stapled, or inserted into envelopes as soon as they arrive from the printer. This allows for faster throughput.
- A wide range of stock options
Digital printers of high quality operate at higher temperatures, which allows for better toner adhesion and print compatibility with a wider range of stocks. You can choose from plain, coated, or uncoated paper, magnetic, metallic, or plastic materials, wood veneers and heat transfers, as well as translucent stocks.
- Variable data
Offset printing was traditionally a method of making multiple copies from a single hard copy. Digital printing makes it easy to change information within a single job. Digital printing can be done directly from electronic files. Variable data adjustments are also possible. Targeted collateral is customizable on-the-fly, and QR code applications can also be implemented.
- Cost-Effective
In today’s fast-paced and egocentric world personalization is crucial. Digital is the best way to print short-run.
- It’s easy to use
The offset printing presses require skilled professionals to operate. There are many things to do such as ink tanks need to be filled, plates need to be cleaned, rubber wheels to maintain and so on. Digital printing makes life much simpler. These machines don’t require any special skills and can be operated by most office staff.
- Environmentally Safe
Offset printing can be messy. Inks must be mixed and plates must be washed with toxic detergents. To fuse the toner in a digital printer, the toner is not heated or pressured. Instead, the toner is transferred onto the medium and then fused with heat. This eliminates the need to mix inks and creates a mess that can be cleaned up with no harmful chemicals.
- Budget friendly
A digital printer produces smaller quantities of personalized envelopes and letterheads at a faster speed than traditional offset printers. This means that there is no need to store multiple boxes full of stationery.