The Process of Printing - Assignment Example

The Process of Printing Introduction The definition of printing is a challenge because it is a broad process. However, it refers to the process of producing newspapers, books or other materials that need printing (Digital Unite, 1). The word ‘printing’ is a verb. The noun that describes it is ‘print’, whose plural is ‘prints’. Many scholars have deduced that if there are many processes of printing, then one can refer to them as ‘printings’. However, there are scholars that disapprove this, stating that there is no word such as ‘printings’ and many processes are still just ‘printing’. Additionally, printing is definable by stating that it is a ‘handwriting’ whereby letters are separate and not joined. The process of printing needs two machines. The first machine is a computer, and the second one is a printer (Digital Unite, 1). Before moving further, a material that needs printing must be a material that underwent the process of typing in the computer first. Additionally, the printing takes place on a sheet of paper or sheets of paper. So, one must also have paper as well. Another point to note about the process of ‘printing is the fact that there are different types of printing. The paper will discuss some of them. Types of printing The first type of printing is ‘offset lithography’. It is the most common type of printing. Here, ink gets transferred from the plates of metal to the rubber blanket. The second type is ‘letterpress’. In it, the images that the printer is printing are higher than in the first type of printing. The third type of printing is ‘flexography’. ‘Flexography’ is the type of ‘letterpress’ printing that uses flexible sheets of paper. The fourth type of printing is ‘Gravure printing’. The type of printing involves printing millions of paper. It uses the kind of technology that ‘lithography’ uses, except that there are millions of material that get printing whilst in ‘lithography’, not more than one hundred pages get printing. The last type of printing that the paper will mention is ‘screen printing’. Printing in this case involves the use of fabric such as Dacron or nylon. There are a total of ten types of printing. However, the paper mentions only five because they are the most common types of printing. The steps that follow describe ‘lithography’ as the type of printing. The reason is that it the one that is most common in homes and offices. Printers, computers and paper are available in offices as well as homes. Therefore, the printing process is common in both areas. Before starting the printing process, one must ensure that the printer is connected to the computer. The point to note in this case is the fact that in order to print, one must not necessarily use Word. However, MS Word is the one that offices and homes usually use. Thus, the steps that follow involve using Word. Steps Step 1 Open the document that you want to print. If the document does not exist already, you must type it in. The document that one must print involves the specification of font size, color, space, and the type of document. For example, the document can be A4 size or bigger or even smaller than that. Whatever size it is, before printing, you must open it. Step 2 After either opening the document or typing it and saving it, it is ready for printing. The next step is to click File. ‘File’ is on the left side on top of the document. To illustrate it; As it is noticeable, to print, you should be able to see ‘File’ and click on it. However, there are some other versions of Word that instead of ‘File’, there is an ‘Office’ button. The button is round in shape and it is an icon in the left corner of the screen or monitor. It is also on top. Basically, it is on the location of ‘File’. After completing step two, you are ready for step three. Step 3 Step three is easy. You should just move downwards and click on ‘Print’ in the menu. After clicking on it, a dialogue box by the name ‘Print Dialogue box’ will appear. Step 4 On the dialogue box, you should choose the number of copies that you want. Step 5 On this step, there are many other printing options, depending on the printer that you are using. For example, you can choose to print some other pages or all the pages. There are printers that give you those options. However, there are others that offer only the possibility of choosing all the pages for printing. Another option that exists for this step is either to change the orientation or not. In such a case, you can choose to change to the landscape from portrait. In addition, you can order your computer or printer to change the size of the paper that you want to have a print. Whilst, it is normal to choose such information in the beginning when one is typing in the paper, the option still comes later in the process of printing. So, step 5 is the last stage that you get to choose the type of paper. Another information that has significance and you should know in stage 5 is the fact that you can see the preview of the way your document will look like after the printing. The preview appears on the right side of the screen or monitor or dialogue box. Step 6 Step six is the last step. In case you are happy with the settings in the document that you want to print, you just click ‘Print’. When you click on it, the document automatically begins to print on the printer. Points to note Every version of desktop or laptop and the printer determines the way you print a document. Another determinant is the application(s) on the computer. The three common ways that offices and homes mostly use are; i. Look for ‘Print’ in the file menu and just directly print the document that you want to print. ii. Press Ctrl + P. when you do this, the ‘Print Dialogue Box’ immediately comes up and you can print your document. iii. There are some computers that have the ‘Print’ icon already on the desktop or screen or monitor. So all you do is to click on it and the printing process successfully begins. Conclusion One of the most common processes both in the office and at home is printing. It is It is the process of producing newspapers, books or other materials that need printing. There are many types of printing. For example, there is ‘lithography’, ‘letterpress’, ‘flexography’, ‘Gavure printing’ and ‘screen printing’. In total, there are ten types of printing. Whilst the process may differ in negligible ways, the steps that you follow when printing is the same for all the types of printing. Step one is opening the document of typing it in. Step two is to click on ‘File’ or on the Word icon on some other versions of Word. The third step is to click ‘Print’. The fourth step is to choose the number of pages that you want. The fifth step is to choose the options that you want. The last step is to click ‘Print’ and the printer will print your document. Works Cited Digital Unite. "How To Print A Document | Step-By-Step Guide." Digital Unite. Digital Talents, 11 June 2014. Web. 3 Dec. 2014. . Read More