Construction of a sheetfed printing press

A sheetfed printing press consists of three main parts:

offset press - process

The feeder and lay system ensures that the sheets are fed into the press one by one in exactly the same position. The printing units each contain a plate cylinder plus ink and damping rollers, a blanket cylinder and the impression cylinder. Each unit prints a single colour on only one side of the paper. In a 4-colour press, all 4 units are needed to build the multi-colour image on one side of the paper. There are also presses with more than 4 units, even up to 8 units or more. An 8-or 12-colour press can print both sides of the paper in one pass by means of a perfecting cylinder between the 4th and 5th or the 6th and 7th unit, which re-aligns the paper for the second side.

Sheet Fed Press

Finally, the delivery system receives the sheets from the press and stacks them in a pile on the delivery board.