There was critical information missing in regard to the most efficient way to produce and mail the project. The Post Office had the answers, but key personnel were not available. Going out on a limb, the Casey team counseled the customer to delay production until they could resolve the issues. The customer, while under pressure to get the project printed and mailed, trusted the Casey team and agreed to delay production until after the New Year holiday, when all the questions could be answered.

The result: Casey got the answers, changed the format of the piece, performed some additional bindery functions and added some tabbing in the mail prep process. Consequently, they slashed mailing costs, reduced delivery charges, mitigated sales tax implications and saved the customer more than $14,000.00!

Are you looking to get more bang for your print marketing buck? Perhaps there is a way Casey can reduce the cost to reach your customer too?  Please give us an opportunity to offer a proposal on your next project.

The Printing Industry is full of jargon that serves to confuse and frustrate customers and outsiders. Below are some common terms used in the printing industry.

Against the grain: Folding or feeding paper at right angles to the grain direction of the paper. On some stocks folding against the grain can result in quality control issues.

Aqueous Coating/Flood Coat: A coat of varnish applied to a sheet on press that protects a printed piece from scuffs and scratches.

Basic size: All papers have an assigned basic sized. For example; 25 x 38 for book papers, 20 x 26 for cover papers, 22 1/2 x 28 1/2 or 22 1/2 x 35 for bristols, 25 1/2 x 30 1/2 for index.

Basis weight: The weight in pounds of a ream (500 sheets) of paper at basic size (see above). Example, 50# Book paper: 500 sheets at basic size of 25″ x 38″ weighs 50 lbs.

Blanket: A rubber-surfaced fabric wrapped around a cylinder that is used to transfer an image from the plate to the paper. A primary component of offset printing.

Bleed: An extra amount of printed image that extends beyond the trim mark of the sheet or page. When the sheet is cut to size the image shows all the way to the edge of the sheet.

Chalking: A condition of printing attributed to improper drying of ink. Pigment dusts off because the vehicle has been absorbed too rapidly into the paper, creating a “chalky” appearance.
CMYK: (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black) The subtractive process colors used in color printing. Black (K) is added to enhance color and contrast.

Coated paper: Paper that has an applied surface coating resulting in a smooth finish. Surface appearances may vary from eggshell to glossy.

Contract proof: A color proof of the job representing an agreement between the printer and the customer regarding how the printed product will look.

Creep: Occurs when multiple signatures are collated together causing the middle pages of a folded signature to extend beyond the outside pages. Your printer has to compensate for it during layout and imposition. Also known as “push out.”

CTP: (Computer-to-Plate) Computer-to-Plate systems or platesetters eliminate the need for having a separate film-to-plate exposure system.

Curl: The distortion of a sheet due to differences in structure or coatings from one side to the other, or to absorption of moisture on an offset press. Can result in complications in post press operations.

Dummy: A preliminary sample of a printed piece, showing images and text. Can be blank pages used to simulate final layout, size, and format.

Dampening system: Component of an offset press that transfers fountain solution to the printing plate.

Die-cutting: The process of using sharp steel rules to cut special shapes for labels, boxes, and containers from printed sheets.

Digital printing: Printing using plate-less systems that are imaged by digital data from prepress systems. Utilizes toner, ink-jet, and other printing processes.

Dot gain: A printing defect in which dots print larger than planned, causing darker tones or stronger colors. Dot gain can be caused optically or mechanically. During plate exposure, light scatters, causing 3-5% optical dot gain. Then, during the printing process, paper and realities of the printing process cause the ink to spread, creating mechanical dot gain.

Feeder: The section of a printing press that separates the sheets from each other and feeds them into the printing units.

Flexography: A primarily lower-quality relief printing process used to produce images on packaging.

Folio Lip: An intentional overlap on a folded signature that allows it to be fed through a binding machine.

Form rollers: The rollers, either inking or dampening, that directly contact the plate on a printing press.

Fountain solution: A solution of water, a natural or synthetic gum, and other chemicals used to dampen the plate and keep non-image areas from accepting ink. A main element of Lithography.

Ganging: Printing multiple print projects on a single sheet in order to reduce costs on each individual project.

Gathering: The collating of multiple signatures into proper sequence. A common post-press operation.

Grain: The direction in which most fibers lie, attributed to the direction in which the paper is made on a paper machine.

Gravure printing: A high quality printing process that uses engraved cylinders to transfer images to substrates.

Grippers: A component of a sheet-fed printing press. Grippers are metal fingers that clamp on to the paper and control its’ flow through the press.

Groundwood: A mechanically prepared wood pulp used in the manufacture of newsprint and other publication grade paper. Groundwood papers are generally used for print projects which do not require more expensive, higher end papers.

Halftone: The reproduction of continuous-tone images, through a special screening process, that converts the image into dots of various sizes and equal spacing between centers (AM or Amplitude Modulated screening), or dots of equal size with variable spacing between them (FM or Frequency Modulated screening), or some combination thereof.

Hickeys: Spots or imperfections in the printing due to dirt on the press, dried ink skin, paper particles, etc. Primarily a condition of offset printing.

Hydrophilic (Water receptive): Non-image areas, for example, on an offset plate, that “love” water. The opposite is hydrophobic. Synonymous with Oliophobic (Oil/Ink repellent).

Hydrophobic (Water repellent): Image areas, for example, on an offset plate, that “hate” water. The opposite is hydrophilic. Synonymous with Oliophillic (Oil/Ink receptive).

Imposition: In image assembly, the calculated positioning of pages on a signature so that after printing, folding, and cutting, all pages will appear in the proper sequence.

Impression cylinder: The cylinder on a printing press that applies the image onto the substrate. The image is transferred to the impression cylinder from the inked plate in direct printing, or the blanket in offset printing.

Make-ready: All work done to set up a press for printing. Paper is run through the press to bring it into registration.

Newsprint: Paper made mostly from groundwood pulp and small amounts of chemical pulp.

Offset: Short for offset lithography. A printing process in which in blanket acts as an intermediary to transfer an image from the image carrier to the substrate.

Opacity: That property of paper that minimizes the “show-through” of printing.

Overprinting: Printing over an area that already has been printed on.
Pagination: The process of performing page makeup.

PDF (Portable Document Format): Created by Adobe Systems, a PDF is a universal portable file format created to speed and make easier the process of document exchange. The PDF format is a printing industry standard.

Perfect bind: A type of binding that glues the edge of sheets to a wraparound cover.

Perfecting press: A printing press that prints both sides of the paper in one pass through the press.

Picking: The lifting or “picking away” of the paper surface during printing. It occurs when the pulling force (tack) of ink is greater than surface strength of paper.

Plate cylinder: The cylinder of a press on which the plate is mounted. Each cylinder prints one color of ink or may be used for varnish or coating.

Platesetter: An image recorder that images directly on plate material using a laser. Platesetters have eliminated the necessity for a traditional film-based imaging system, and have greatly reduced the time and labor needed to produce printing plates.

PMS (Pantone Matching System®): Color charts that have more than 1000 preprinted color patches of blended inks, used to identify, display and define special “branded” colors. PMS is the standard ink color system used by commercial printers.

PostScript: A page description language developed by Adobe Systems to describe and define a page image for printing. It handles both text and graphics. A PostScript file is a purely code-based de¬scription of a page.

Preflighting: The evolution and analysis of files containing information for a printed piece. Proper preflighting can eliminate or prevent problems later on in the printing process.

Process colors: The use and mixing of the primary subtractive colors (CMYK) to reproduce images and colors on press.

Raster image processor (RIP): A combination of computer software and hardware that controls the printing process by analyzing a digital image file and instructing a printing or platesetting device how to create the images.

Ream: Five hundred sheets of paper.

Register marks: Crosses or other targets applied during printing, used for registering of two or more colors in process printing.

Saddle stitch: A common bindery operation that uses metal wire to stitch gathered signatures together to create a booklet.

Scum: A film of ink printing in the non-image areas of a plate, usually attributed to a problem with fountain solution.

Signature: The name given to a printed sheet after it has been folded.

Skid: A platform support for a stack of sheets of paper, signatures, or finished books.

Tack: The property of cohesion between particles or ink; the separation force of ink needed for proper transfer and trapping on multicolor printing presses. How “sticky” an ink is.

Trapping: The ability to print a wet ink film over previously printed ink. During prepress, the amount of overprinting colors need to overlap is calculated in order to eliminate white lines between colors in printing.

Variable Data Printing (VDP): An emerging and growing segment of the printing industry. VDP is the ability of each printed page to can contain different information, text, or images.

Varnish: A thin, protective coating applied to a printed sheet for protection or appearance. A “spot varnish” applies varnish only to specific areas of a sheet to highlight that specific spot.

Viscosity: A broad term used to explain how fluid an ink is. A highly viscous ink, such as litho ink is more solid and does not easily flow, while an ink with low viscosity, such as flexo ink, is much more liquid.

Web-to-Print: A customer-printer relationship that uses the Internet as the medium for exchange. Also called “W2P” and “web2print”.

Web printing: Has nothing to do with the World Wide Web. In this case, “Web” refers to a type of printing press, which uses paper off a large roll, rather than pre-cut sheets. The paper is unrolled and is fed through the press as a “web”.

Work-and-Tumble: To print one side of a sheet of paper, then turn it over from gripper to back using the same side guide and plate to print the second side.

Work-and-Turn: To print one side of a sheet of paper, then turn it over from left to right and print the second side using the same gripper and plate but opposite side guide.

Print is unique amongst all other forms of communication in that it is textural as well as visual. Both the “look” and the “feel” are benefits of print.

Paper selection is one of the most important aspects to consider when designing and producing a printed piece. Paper selection can have a profound affect on the finished quality of a job, and yet it is often overlooked. Paper selection is not as easy as choosing the most expensive paper available for high quality jobs, or choosing the cheapest paper in order to cut costs. By remembering a few important steps you can ensure that right paper is being used for your job.

Color and Brightness

When it comes to color, there is more to choose from than just white. Paper manufacturers offer a full range of choices such as blue white, soft white and natural white, to name a few. Paper color can have a great affect on the finished quality and feel of a printed piece, so it is important to consider the end use. If a piece contains a lot of text it may be prudent to choose warmer white as it is offers enhanced readability, whereas a piece with a lot of color may be well suited to a blue white due to its’ high brightness. Remember also that color will be affected by shade of white you choose. While a blue white will help color stand out, it will have the effect of “graying” warm colors such as skin tones – colors that are better suited for warm white papers.

Paper mills grade paper based on brightness with Grade 1 being the brightest level and Grade 5 being the least bright. Brighter sheets are more expensive due to the fillers and chemicals, such as fluorescent dyes and optical brighteners. While it may be tempting to spend extra for these whiter sheets, it is important to remember that these additives in paper can have a negative affect on paper stability and press runability.

Texture

The texture of paper can add a unique personality to any job. A high gloss, smooth paper will have a completely different feel from an uncoated rough paper. Consider the feeling you wish to convey. A high-quality marketing piece has a different feel than a wedding invitation. By utilizing different textures you can successfully convey those varying feelings. Many mills offer specialty finishes such as leather or satin that can add a nice touch to any job.

Weight

Paper weight is based on the weight of one ream (500 sheets) at basic size, which will vary depending on the type of paper. For example; 20 pound Bond paper means that 500 sheets of 17” x 22” bond paper will weigh 20 lbs, whereas 80 pound Cover paper means that 500 sheets of 20” x 26” will weigh 80 pounds

Paper weight is directly related to opacity. Heavy paper will allow for much less “see through.” If a job is going to be printed on both sides with lots of dark solids, it is advantageous to choose a heavier, thicker stock. Remember though that paper is sold by the pound, so a heavier sheet will cost more, all other things being equal. Heavier stocks may also lead to some complications in post-press operations (bindery).

Heavier stock can also be a liability if a job is to be mailed. One way to reduce weight while maintaining thickness is to chose an uncoated stock. Coatings consist of clay that can increase the overall weight of paper.

Thinking Green

In keeping with recent trends and an increasing environmental consciousness, many pieces are now being designed to highlight their “green” aspects. The most visible way to accomplish this is by choosing recycled paper.

The EPA sets minimum requirements for recycled paper: 30% post consumer waste for uncoated papers, and 10% for coated stocks. Many mills will now offer paper that will exceed these minimum standards and contain greater percentages of post consumer waste fiber.

Another way to utilize more environmentally friendly paper is by choosing paper that has been bleached using eco-friendly methods. In the past chlorine gas was used to bleach paper, allowing carcinogenic dioxins to be released. Paper mills now use an oxygen substitute for bleaching. Another choice would be to use paper that is completely unbleached, or Totally Chlorine Free (TCF).

Production and End Use

Not all paper runs equally on press. Your printer will have specific knowledge and experience with different stocks and will be able to offer valuable insight. Environmental conditions, press conditions, and qualities of the actual paper stock can all have a profound impact on the finished quality of a printed piece.

It is important to make sure that the stock chosen will not cause difficulty for post press operations. If a specialty finishing technique, like a foil stamp is called for, make sure that the paper chosen can accommodate this type of finish. Coated stocks can be especially difficult in this area. Thick stocks can cause a lot of headaches for folding. Most commonly “cracking” will occur, especially if a fold has to be made against grain direction. In some cases scoring or other preventative measures must be taken, adding time and labor to the completion of the job.

Other things to consider are the end use of the project. If the piece is going to be handled and receive a lot of use and abuse it is important to choose a durable paper. If the piece is going to be largely ignored, like a direct marketing piece that may only be viewed by a small percentage of its’ intended audience, then money can be saved by using a weaker paper. If the piece is designed to be written on, it would be unwise to choose a high gloss paper as most pens have a very difficult time writing on this type of paper. Environmental factors and longevity of the piece are other areas to be considered when selecting a paper.

Many customers and designers may feel overwhelmed by the multitude of paper available to them. Speak to your supplier or printer for suggestions on what stock to choose. Just because you think a certain stock may look nice, it may not be the best selection due to the factors discussed above. Ultimately, remember that paper choice can have a huge impact on the finished quality of any printed piece.

How to use styles in Adobe InDesign CS3 from Ryan Casey on Vimeo.

Now hold on, Casey Printing may be located in a little farm town in rural California, but we do have electricity, and consequently, access to the World Wide Web. Yes, it’s stupendous, glorious and sexy, but, like the frosting on a cake, its only part of the mix. When you want to have your cake, and eat it too, you better put print in the mix.

Consider the following from the 2008 Publishing Advertising Trends Study:

Given the much reported double-digit growth in online advertising dollars and the hype of online advertising as the future, what might surprise many are the publishing revenue trends forecasted by those in the know. Yes, magazine publishers and executives expect online revenue to increase, but 68 percent of those surveyed do not expect to see online revenue exceed print revenue for their organizations – not now, not ever.

As reported in “Think Ad Revenue Is All Going Online? Think Again” by Melissa Campanelli, Noelle Skodzinski, Publishing Executive, May 2008, Vol. 23(4), p. 26.

So, as all good marketing chefs know, print is the flour in the cake mix. Without it there is no foundation and the message falls apart and not everybody gets a piece. Through the US mail, newspaper carriers, door knob hangers, Little League fund raisers, random magazine racks, flyers on your windshield and a zillion other ways, print drives the message home, literally.

Okay, we’ve mixed the batter and used print to get the message in your house. The cake’s in the oven and things are cookin.’ But obviously, it is not the whole recipe. Pull it out and apply the frosting: TV, radio, retail, the internet.

But don’t take my word for it, the Direct Marketing Association provides the following information regarding the impact of the printed catalog in the State of the Catalog Industry 2008 study:

► More than 60% of merchants surveyed report that catalogs are their primary sales channel. Websites are second at 20%. Six percent say retail is their main sales channel.

► The paper catalog is still the largest revenue generator among all channels with an average of nearly 50% of sales in both 2007 and 2008, although web sales continue to grow.

► There has been a large increase in circulation from 2003 to present. The DMA states this is likely a result of more companies using catalogs to drive web business.

DMA conducted this survey in April and May of 2008 through an email invitation sent to multichannel companies, including catalog, retail, and internet merchants. When the survey was closed, 106 respondents were included for tabulation.

“Oh Yeah?” says the young marketing executive, “if the internet is the frosting, we better spend our marketing dollars online, ‘cause everybody knows that kids prefer to eat the sweet stuff first.

Not so fast. According to ICOM’s nationwide survey of U.S. households, contrary to conventional thought, young professionals ages 18-34 proclaim nearly a two-to-one preference for receiving product information (e.g., coupons) by direct mail over e-mail or online. Privacy is reported as one of the main reasons for this surprising partiality.

ICOM’s nationwide survey of U.S. households was conducted in February 2008. The online research was sent to 40,000 households in the ICOM Shopper’s Voice database. 1,529 U.S. consumers responded.
So print makes a tasty morsel for the younger crowd, but how ‘bout those boomers? Will they find your website on their own, or, in the slightly altered, immortal words of Marie-Antoinette, do we, as marketers “let them eat (the whole) cake”? To answer that, consider this information from a survey of online baby boomer trends:

93 percent of consumers (age 40-plus) say they have read an article about a website in print (newspaper or magazine) and have later visited the product or service’s website online.

Boomers account for 78 million people in the US and control more than 83 percent of consumer spending, reminding marketers that print media coverage, as part of an integrated marketing strategy, remains an important element of boomer marketing.

ThirdAge/JWTBOOM of 1,800 US adults, age 40 and over as reported by Marketing Charts, June 5, 2008

The list goes on but the point is made and the cake is done. Blow out the candles, cut it up, put it on plates and serve. Just remember, if you don’t want it to get stale, crumble and fall, you better put print in the mix.

Overall source: Print in the Mix - A Clearinghouse of Research on Print Media Effectiveness. www.printintthemix.rit.edu

The attached PDF has screen shots to help you find the settings. Your controls might look a little different than mine due to changes in different versions of windows, but the idea is the same.

Laptop/notebook computers use power saving by default and your desktop PC may already be set to save power, but it’s easy to check your settings and adjust for your needs.

The greatest power saving comes when you shut it down entirely when not in use!

Click below to download our guide to saving power in Microsoft Windows

windows-power-settings

All exaggerations aside, we have all had to sit through some pretty tough presentations, and it is even worse when you are the presenter. The following tips have been compiled in an effort to try to make your presentations more beneficial to those watching and thereby generate more interest in your pitch.

1. It’s a presentation, not a book - Use your slides only to convey main points and present multimedia. If all you plan on doing is reading your slides, save everyone some time and send out a well-composed email or letter. A good tactic to make a take home version of the presentation with the notes that you want them to have attached.
2. Don’t use notes while you present - Take some time to practice memorizing what you want to say and then use your slides to keep yourself on track. If you spend your whole time reading your notes, your voice will become monotone and your audience will stop paying attention.
3. Be extemporaneous - Don’t take yourself too seriously and keep your audience engaged. Vary the pitch of your voice, walk around, and use your hands a little bit to emphasize what you are saying. The focus should be on you, so make sure that you make it that way.
4. Get a remote control - This goes back to the last tip. If you sit behind your laptop in order to advance slides, the focus will be on the slides and not you. Stand in front of your audience and use a remote control to advance  your slides. Remote controls can be found at big box electronics stores like Circuit City. Many computer manufacturers (including Apple) have built in IR receivers that work with remote controls that are sold by the manufacturers.
5. Keep it classy - Make sure that the design of your presentation represents your brand well. Make a theme that is consistent throughout your presentation. Ensure that this theme is unique enough to make it stand out from every other PowerPoint that your audience has seen, but make sure that it doesn’t distract from your presentation. You should be very careful with your transitions: pick one and stick with it. Make sure that it is not too wild.
6. Say no to word art - Just don’t do it. Enough said.
7. Break away from PowerPoint - There are many applications out there that can be used to create great presentations. Apple makes an application called Keynote that in my opinion is far superior to PowerPoint and costs far less. There is also an up and coming online presentation service called SlideRocket that allows for all sorts of collaboration as well as a community available for content procurement.
8. Summarize at the end - Even if you are the best presenter in the world, there will always be someone who had to step out to take a phone call, use the rest room, or sleep off jet-lag. By summerizing at the end, you will give them the opportunity to see what they missed.
9. Extra Credit - Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple Computer has a reputation as being one of the best presenters in the world. Go to http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/specialevent1008/ and check out his latest keynote where he reviewed company financial information while unveiling several highly anticipated products.

Check out a presentation that I made that would go with this blog posting by visiting http://app.sliderocket.com/app/FullPlayer.aspx?id=ECA7492C-3AD4-076A-8DB0-64D8A00CD004

What are your presentation best practices? Share them by making a comment!

The open type font standard was created in an effort to establish an open system for developing high quality, cross platform, multi-language fonts. Development began in 1994 by Microsoft and Adobe joined the effort in 1996 and by 2006, the entire Adobe font library was translated into the language.

One of the benefits of an OpenType font is that it will support up to 65,536 Glyphs. These allow a font to have many different styles, as well as small caps and oldstyle fonts.

Over the next couple of weeks, in this blog we will be exploring the different features of these fonts and looking at examples of how they are used. Please feel free to comment with the different ways that you have used the fonts in your creative endeavors.

The most important thing to remember when you are using quotes within a document is that 66 comes before 99. This means that the opening quotes should be the ones that look like a 66 and the closing quotes should look like a 99.

notice that the opening quote looks like a 66 and the closing looks like a 99

So how do you use these quotes you ask? Adobe InDesign makes it easy. The first thing that you need to do is go to file/document setup/type. Make sure that “use typographers quotes” is checked. This will ensure that when your text is imported, the correct quotes are used.

If you are composing your text in Adobe InDesign, or need to fix existing quotes that were incorrectly imported, simply input option + [ for the open quote and option + shift + [ to close the quote.

Many print buyers today are asking their printers if they use soy inks. These buyers are under the impression that by using soy ink they are being environmentally responsible. The truth is that even though soy inks are a part of environmental printing, or, “Printing Green,” they are not the whole answer.

Responsible printers, like Casey Printing, have been working on removing hazardous chemicals in their pressrooms for years. Manufacturers of inks and solutions used in the printing process today have eliminated the use of lead, chromium, and silver and are working hard to reduce the harmful VOC (volatile organic content). They are also under close scrutiny to monitor and reduce their waste streams. All of these are as important as whether or not they are using soy inks.

So why is printing with soy ink so well known?

The popularity of Soy oil-based inks actually began several years ago as a replacement for petrochemical oils. Soybeans are plentiful and are a popular crop among farmers, making it widely available.

The use of soy oil-based inks has gained in popularity recently to address the environmental issues and reduce our dependence on foreign petrochemical-based oil for inks. Other vegetable oils used in making ink include cottonseed, vernonia, sunflower, tung, linseed, and canola.

Printing inks today fall under several classes that include:

• Sheet-fed ink (dried by oxidation or polymerization)
• Newspaper inks (dried by absorption, oxidation)
• Heat-set inks (dried by the action of heat)

The American Soybean Association (ASA) was very effective in the late 1980’s at promoting the use of soy oils in printing inks. They established minimum percentages of soy oil content in order for the SoySeal to be displayed on an ink can or a printed piece. The minimum levels are:

• 30% for colored news inks
• 40% for black news inks
• 20% for business forms inks
• 20% for sheet-fed inks
• 7% for heat-set inks

Heat-set ink manufacturers are substituting the soy oil today in place of linseed oil as the modifier for the heat-set varnish. It is ironic that the ink producers are replacing one vegetable oil for another. The advantage is that the ink manufacturer and printer can now claim the ink is “soy based” and be able to use the ASA SoySeal.

Sheet-fed inks have used linseed oil as the base oil in ink for many years. Linseed oil was used because it imparts good flow characteristics to ink and converts into a solid over a long period of time (drying). To accelerate this drying process additives are added, such as cobalt or manganese.

Press-related problems with soy oil inks have been related mostly to drying. Soy inks dry (due to the soy oil) at a slower rate. With print buyers demanding closer deadlines, these inks are not an option for many quick turnaround printers. Soybean and other vegetable oil are actually more expensive than petrochemical oils. Again, print buyers are demanding the lowest price possible. The lowest price may not be the best environmental choice.

Ink manufactures are experimenting with many new vehicles and other non-petroleum products to give their next generation of inks faster and harder drying properties. These inks may not contain enough soy oil to qualify for the ASA SoySeal logo, but they are low VOC, high vegetable oil (cottonseed, vernonia, sunflower, tung, linseed, and canola) renewable resource inks.

While there have been many claims of the ecological benefits to be gained, ink made with soybean oil contains waxes, pigments, and other additives. This makes it no easier to dispose of a soy oil-based Ink than a petro-based ink, printed or non-printed. This requires that the same considerations be taken for disposal in a landfill or incineration, as petro-based inks would need. While soy or vegetable containing inks may help reduce the measured VOC’s (volatile organic compound content), the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) has not exempted vegetable oils as a non-VOC. The EPA believes that while all vegetable oils are not VOC’s, they are “precursors to precursors of ozone”. When vegetable oils, including soy, dry by oxidation, there is evidence that minute amounts of VOC’s are released, so says the Environmental Conservation Board. While the EPA and the ECB have made these statements, they do believe they (soy inks) are much more friendly to the air environment than petro-based oils. The same would hold true for any other vegetable oil based ink.

If print buyers are interested in doing business with printers who follow sustainable business practices, they should not just be concerned with the use of soy oil (unless you have a vested interest in growing soy beans). They should also, and perhaps more importantly, ask if their printer is doing their part in reducing VOCs, monitoring their waste streams, using vegetable based ink etc. or, in other words, are they really  “Printing Green.”