Sheetfed vs. Web Printing
What is the difference between sheetfed and web printing? And what are the benefits of using each?
Sheetfed printing is just that... “sheet fed”. Sheetfed presses print on sheets of paper. These presses can be very small, such as printing on sheets no larger than a 12” x 19”, or large, such as printing on a 54” x 77” sheet (these are very, very rare and used for specialty printing).
Web presses print on large rolls of paper (as wide as 177” and weighing well over a ton each), and have a continuous stream(s) of paper running through the press, which is called a ‘web’. Some web presses - called double webs - print on 2 rolls at a time, and marry those ‘webs’ at the end of the press, folding and finishing (binding, nesting, glueing, etc.) them together. Large webs can produce finished catalogs right off the end of the press, up to 80 pages!
Paper capability is very different between types of presses. Sheetfed presses can print on a wide variety of paper thicknesses, including thick cover-weight stocks that are then converted into packaging (such as boxes for retail products). Web presses have limits on both the paper thickness they can print on, as well as the thickness that can be finished off the end of the press.
Speed is a huge difference... sheetfed presses can print up to approx. 15,000 impressions per hour, while web presses can print up to 50,000. That speed - and the necessary systems to achieve it - can have an effect on quality. Sheetfed presses can print much higher-quality images than web.
Volume is another one of the biggest factors in whether you should be printing using sheetfed or web presses. Assuming your printed piece fits the other requirements of printing on a web, if the quantity you want is not high enough, you will be wasting a lot of money - web presses cost much, much more to get them ready for printing, and waste a huge amount of paper in the process. We’re talking about tens of thousands of dollars of paper depending on the project. In stark contrast, a small sheetfed press can use as little as $5 in paper to make ready.
As you can imagine, sheetfed presses cost considerably less than web, and they are far less expensive to operate. However, this is like comparing an apple to a orange Mini Cooper. They are geared for entirely different projects. Think of sheetfed for small quantity (up to 50,000 or 100,000) brochures, direct-mail pieces, catalogs, etc. Think of web presses for large quantity catalogs, direct-mail pieces, magazines, and newspapers.