All Web-To-Print is not the same.

Since we all got desktop printers at home, printing for many has become so ubiquitous and click-done that the perception is that commercial, large-scale print manufacture simply happens at the push of a button.

“Why does it look one way on my LCD monitor under blue fluorescents than when it’s printed?”

“What the hell do you mean you can’t get the paper when I see paper all over the place?”

Riddle me that, Print-Guy.

In response to this, “Print-on-Demand” and “Web-to-Print” offers are popping up all over the place claiming ease and affordability—but very few of them deliver on quality. Most of them, like ours,  have a simple ordering process, an upload, and a credit card payment. You can proof your job on your screen to make sure all looks just the way you want it to.

What’s not understood here is it’s not just a computer talking to some over-sized desktop-style printer. There are a whole mess of people behind the scenes making sure quality and turn-times are met. Balancing many jobs and many problems at the same time. Not to mention, without strict quality standards and fulfillment partner qualification, your “Free 250 business cards” come out looking, well, like you got them for free.

Most of the online print ordering facilities are operating on ever-decreasing margins in a commodified, shrinking market.  So what happens when something goes wrong? Whoever placed the order, more and more likely to be someone that has little understanding of what it takes to manufacture print, get’s an email that reads or sounds like the crazy guy on the street yelling gibberish.

“Sorry sir, but your rich black is too dense. We need you to provide new artwork with an aggregate density of 270 or less.”

“Huh?”

It’s not to say that Web-to-Print solutions are bad. They are very convenient for small jobs of all sorts of formats. If your artwork is production-ready you can benefit from this technology and make your life easier. The catch is, when something goes wrong—and in print manufacture it often does—you need to ask yourself, “Can I actually speak to someone or am I doomed to automated phone-jails, cryptic emails, and a shoddy end-result?”

Many of the conventional press web-to-print solutions combine multiple orders and gang them up on one press sheet. So your business cards are being printed on the same sheet of paper as another order’s fliers. This can inadvertently cause problems with matching important color. With digital press web-to-print it’s more likely jobs are processed one after the other and dealt with individually. This means  color moves can be made by the operator to insure color accuracy.

Note here digital printing is reserved for lower volume printing. The processing and set-up fees are less complicated than setting up a conventional press making them more financially viable. There is a break-even point to this though. As quantities rise, conventional printing becomes more economical. This is another reason to have someone you can talk to. If you don’t know whether to use a web-to-print store or to go conventional it sure is nice to be able to pick up the phone or send a quick email for a recommendation.