The Difference of Flexo Photopolymer Cliche Printing and Offset Lithographic Printing

                                 The Difference of Flexo Photopolymer Cliche Printing and Offset Lithographic Printing

There are significant differences between flexographic printing and offset printing in terms of principles, application scenarios and printing characteristics.

Flexographic printing is a type of letterpress printing that uses flexible printing plates and environmentally friendly water-based inks. It is suitable for large-scale printing such as packaging materials;

Offset printing is lithographic printing that transfers ink through a rubber blanket. It is more suitable for high-precision, multi-color printed publications and high-end packaging. The vast majority of books, periodicals, brochures and packaging color boxes are offset printing products. Offset printing is a type of lithographic printing , that uses a rubber (rubber blanket) to transfer the image and text on the printing plate to the substrate, that is, a lithographic printing method with three rollers (printing plate roller , rubber blanket roller, and impression roller ).

Characters of Flexographic Printing:

1. Thick ink layer and consistent ink color. Although the ink layer of flexographic printing is thinner than that of gravure printing, it is definitely thicker than that of offset printing, which is very beneficial for large-area color blocks commonly seen in printed packaging products; because the ink is transferred by anilox roller, generally speaking, if the paper condition remains unchanged and the ink condition remains unchanged, the ink color of products from the same batch or different batches can remain consistent, which is the most basic requirement for packaging printing and is not easy to achieve with offset printing.

2. Non-toxic water-based ink is widely used for printing. Flexographic ink is the only non-toxic ink approved by the US Food and Drug Association among all printing inks. Therefore, flexographic printing is also known as green printing, and is widely used in instrument and drug packaging, which is beyond the reach of other printing methods.

3. Wide range of suitable printing media. Flexographic printing machines can not only print various types of paper, but also aluminum foil, plastic film, self-adhesive notes, woven bags, breathable films, metal foil, non-woven fabrics and textiles. The types of suitable printing media are more than gravure printing. In addition to paper, offset printing cannot or is not easy to print other media.

4. Wide range of applications. Almost all paper and plastic packaging products can be printed by flexographic printing. In addition to packaging products, newspapers, books, magazines and other products can also be printed.

5. The equipment has strong comprehensive processing capabilities. Flexographic printing machines can be equipped with post-printing processing on the same equipment, such as reverse printing, UV coating,spot varnishing, laminating, die-cutting, cross-cutting, slitting, punching, folding, automatic waste removing, etc., and even numbering, hot stamping or screen printing units or offset printing units can be added to the printing unit. Therefore, it is not unreasonable for some people to call the flexographic printing machine a printing processing production line.

   EcooGraphix provides All In One flexo printing equipment and consumables with reliable quality and competitive prices. Such as Flexo CTP, flexo plate exposing machine, flexo plate washing machine, flexo cliche plate drying machine,flexo CTP plate processor and so on.