How newspapers are printed

A newspaper is printed on a continuous ribbon of cheap paper that runs through the press like a flag in a gale.

stations: 6
things upstream: 50
raw sources: 19
steps from the ground: 8

The short version

Newspapers are printed on newsprint, a cheap, strong wood-pulp paper that comes in huge rolls. Photographic plates carry each page, ink moves from plate to rubber blanket to paper, and cutters and folders slice and fold the moving web into finished copies. Bundles are loaded onto trucks.

Roll out the newsprint

Mills make newsprint mostly from wood pulp, and it goes to the press as a giant roll. It is cheap and strong enough to survive a fast web press, but it yellows with age because of the lignin in it.

Goes in
Paper
Image the plates

Each page is converted into the four process colors, and a plate is made for each one. Light transfers the page onto a thin aluminum sheet, and the sheet is chemically treated so that ink clings to the image areas only.

Goes in
Aluminum
Ink the plates

Plates are curved around cylinders on the press. Oil-based ink sticks to the image and water-dampened blank areas repel it, because oil and water do not mix.

Goes in
Ink Water
Offset onto the web

The inked image is pressed onto a rubber blanket, and the blanket prints on the paper. Two blankets squeeze the web between them to print both sides at once, and the soft rubber hugs the rough paper surface.
Cut and fold the web

The printed ribbon runs on to a folder that slices it into pages and folds the sections together at speed.
Count and bundle

Finished copies are counted into stacks, strapped and sent by conveyor to loading docks. Zoned editions of the same paper can carry different ads and local pages for each delivery area.

End of the lineNewspaper

Worth repeating

Charles Fenerty of Nova Scotia invented newsprint in 1844 by making paper from wood, and showed a sample to the Acadian Recorder in Halifax.
A good offset plate can print more than a million impressions.