Printing Press Operator

A Printing Press Operator makes sure each print job in the shop is done properly. This is more than a point of pride. Printing machines can print an incredible amount of material in a very short period of time. As a Printing Press Operator, if you don’t catch and correct an error early, it could mean the entire print job must be redone, at the expense of the print shop.

If you work as a Printing Press Operator for a large print shop, you may have an assistant to help you with the job. If you work for a smaller shop, you likely tackle each task under your own steam.

You’re given a set of printing plates, which you load onto your press. You also load the ink and paper, then do a test run of a few copies. You look over those copies carefully, making sure that the ink isn’t too faint or too dark and that the images are straight. If necessary, you make adjustments.

As the press run continues, you monitor the ink and paper levels. You may be working with a press that alerts you when levels are low, or you may have an older system that provides no alerts at all.

You return home at night awash in color. Running a large press is a messy job, and you’re likely to get stained in the process. You may also become a stickler for all print jobs (even those that aren’t yours), unable to look at a newspaper or magazine without observing the print job closely.