Printing machine operators, also known as press operators, prepare, activate, and maintain printing presses. Duties of printing machine operators differ according to the type of press they operate. Traditional printing methods, such as offset lithography, gravure, flexography, and letterpress, make use of a plate or roller that carries the final image that is to be printed and copies the image to paper. In addition to the traditional printing processes, plate less or non impact processes are coming into common use. Plate less processes—including digital, electrostatic, and ink-jet printing—are used for copying, duplicating, and file and specialty printing. Plate less processes usually are done by quick printing shops and smaller in-house printing shops, but increasingly are being used by business printers for short-run or customized printing jobs.
Machine operators’ jobs vary from one shop to another because of differences in the types and sizes of presses. Small commercial shops can be operated by one person and tend to have relatively small presses, which print only one or two colors at occasion. Large newspaper, magazine, and book printers use giant “in-line web” presses that involve a crew of several press operators and press assistants.
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