Offset vs. Digital Printing

When buying printed materials, it is important to know which resources in the industry will serve you best with regard to price and quality. We at A-Lex can help to steer you in the right direction depending on the parameters of your project. Serving

Offset Printing – This is the traditional ink on paper process that has been around forever. It is typically used for larger projects with a higher run quantity such as catalogs, pocket folders and the like. When pricing offset printing, you will find that a large part of the cost is in the setup of the press. As an example of this, the cost between getting 10,000 or 20,000 brochures would not be considerably more since once the press is running, the additional cost basically involves the paper and some press time. Offset printing is also used on specialty projects that involve special inks such as metallics or specialty binding.

Digital Printing – Digital Printing is run on a high-speed color copier and uses toners instead of ink. It is typically suited for small runs such as if a customer would want to get 250 full color business cards where the cost to set up on an offset press would be prohibitive. In the past it was easy to tell the difference between offset and digital printing on a printed piece, with offset having a higher quality and basically brighter look but the quality of the copiers has greatly improved to the point where now they both look very similar.

A-Lex services include digital and offset printing in King of Prussia, Norristown, Reading, Pottstown, West Chester,  Conshohocken,  Montgomery County PA, Berks County PA, Bucks County PA, and Chester County PA.