Rotary Press

rotary press

Printing press that prints on paper passing between a supporting cylinder and a cylinder containing the printing plates. In contrast, the flatbed press has a flat printing surface. The rotary press is used mainly in high-speed, web-fed operations in which the press takes paper from a roll, as in newspaper printing. Many of these large presses not only print as many as four colours but also cut and fold and bind in a cover, all in one continuous automatic process. Paper passes through some presses at nearly 20 mph (30 kph); large presses can print up to 60,000 copies of 128 standard-size pages in an hour. See also R. Hoe.

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rotary press [′rōd·ə·rē ′pres]

(graphic arts)

A press utilizing two cylinders, one of which supports the paper while the other one prints on it; large rotary presses are web-fed and accept continuous strips of paper from large rolls; this web of paper is not cut or trimmed until after it is printed.

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Rotary Press 

a printing press whose impression and printing surfaces are cylindrical. Rotary presses are subdivided into sheet-fed and web-fed presses. The primary types are classified as follows: (1) by the printing method (letterpress, piano-graphic, and gravure); (2) by the number of colors applied at one time (one-, two-, and four-color presses); and (3) by the number of sides of the page printed (single-side and double-side printers).

Web-fed rotary presses may have a constant or variable format. In constant-format web-fed rotary presses, the length of the sheets cut off from the web is invariable and equal to part or all of the circumference of the impression cylinder. In variable-format web-fed presses, which are used for printing special items, such as forms, tickets, and bank documents, the length of the printed sheet can be varied. Rotary presses are the primary equipment used for medium- and large-scale printing jobs.

Sheet-fed rotary presses operate at speeds up to 10,000–12,000 cycles per hour; speeds for web-fed machines may reach 30,000 cycles per hour.

B. A. KUZ‘MIN