Robert Egert

The Future of Offset Lithography

Offset printing is the most common form of high-volume commercial printing, due to advantages in quality and efficiency in high-volume jobs. The more you print, the less you pay per page, because most of the price goes into the preparation undergone before the first sheet of paper is printed and ready for distribution. Any additional paper print will only cost the client paper price (and ink), which is very minimal. While modern digital presses (Xerox iGen3 Digital Production Press or the family of HP Indigo solutions or Kodak Nexpress solutions, or Canon imagePRESS for example) are getting closer to the cost/benefit of offset for high-quality work, they have not yet been able to compete with the sheer volume of product that an offset press can produce. Furthermore, many modern offset presses are using computer to plate systems as opposed to the older computer to film workflows, which further increases their quality.

Background

Stanley Egert, like his father, Charles Egert, worked as a printer from the time he returned from Japan at the end of WWII until is forced retirement in the nineteen seventies. His orignal craft was associated with hot lead typesetting but later he learned photolithography. He worked in newspaper printing most memorably The Bond Buyer and the Law Journal.