What are the advantages of digital printing compared to gravure printing, offset printing and flexographic printing?

Flexographic printing, as an environmentally friendly printing method, is gradually replacing the original gravure printing. Especially in the current environment of tightening environmental protection policies, many printing companies that originally used gravure printing have begun to transform. According to relevant data, the number of gravure printing is gradually declining, while the corresponding flexographic printing is growing, replacing the original gravure market. What exactly caused this situation? From the perspective of printing companies, what are the advantages of flexographic printing? Let’s take a look.

Flexographic, as the name suggests, is a flexible printing plate made of resin and other materials. It is a relief printing technology. The plate making cost is much lower than that of metal printing plates such as copper plates of gravure. This printing method was proposed in the middle of the last century. However, at that time, the supporting water-based ink technology had not been greatly developed, and the requirements for environmental protection were not so concerned at that time, so it was not promoted in the printing of non-absorbent materials.

Satellite Flexographic Printing Machine

Although flexographic printing and gravure printing are basically the same in terms of process, both of which involve unwinding, winding, ink transfer, drying, etc., there are still significant differences in the details between the two. In the past, gravure printing with solvent-based inks was significantly better than flexographic printing in terms of printing effect. Now, with the rapid development of environmentally friendly ink technologies such as water-based inks and UV inks, the characteristics of flexographic printing have begun to show, and are not inferior to gravure printing. In general, flexographic printing has the following characteristics:

1. Lower cost
   The plate-making cost is much lower than that of gravure printing, especially when printing in small batches. This gap is huge.
2. Less ink
   Flexographic printing uses a flexible plate and transfers ink through anilox rollers, which reduces ink consumption by more than 20% compared to gravure printing.
3. Fast printing speed and higher efficiency
   Flexographic printing machines with high-quality water-based inks can easily reach a high speed of 400 meters per minute, while common gravure printing can often only reach 150 meters.
4. More environmentally friendly
   Flexographic printing generally uses environmentally friendly inks such as water-based inks and UV inks, which are more environmentally friendly than gravure printing using solvent-based inks, with almost no VOCS emissions, and can be food-grade

Characteristics of gravure printing

1. High plate-making costs

In the early days, gravure printing used chemical corrosion to make plates, but the effect was not good. Now laser plate-making can be used, so the accuracy is higher, and printing plates made of metals such as copper are more durable than flexible resin plates, but the plate-making costs are also higher, and the initial investment is greater.

2. Better print accuracy and consistency
   Metal printing plates are more suitable for mass printing, and have better consistency, and are less affected by thermal expansion and contraction
3. Large ink consumption and high production cost
   In terms of ink transfer, gravure printing consumes more ink, which invisibly increases production costs.