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Offset Lithography in 2024: A Year in Review

Although the pace of the market for offset equipment was moderate at best, technological advances throughout year have set the stage for what could be a surge in press placements in 2025.

Thursday, January 09, 2025

Anyone looking for an inflection point in the progress of offset lithography probably didn’t find one in 2024. But that point—a moment of accelerating and transformative change that breaks the thing undergoing it decisively from the past—can’t be far off.

The technology of offset is already well on its way toward making that break.

The process now stands as a form of digital printing in its own right. In the newest equipment, all of the main press functions are data-driven and digitally controlled. Thanks to this, offset is increasingly geared to short runs. In production without variable data, only the way offset transfers ink to paper distinguishes it in any meaningful sense from non-impact digital printing systems.


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About Patrick Henry

Patrick Henry is a journalist and an educator who has covered the graphic communications industry since 1984. The author of many hundreds of articles on business trends and technological developments in graphic communications, he has been published in most of the leading trade media in the field. He also has taught graphic communications as an adjunct lecturer for New York University and New York City College of Technology. The holder of numerous awards for industry service and education, Henry is currently the managing director of Liberty or Death Communications, a content consultancy.

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