E-books and publications
A practical series on print and packaging technology, written for the people doing the work. Volume 1 is in preparation, and this page says exactly where it stands.
Where this stands today
In preparation. Volume 1 is being written and is not available yet. There is nothing to buy or download on this page, and no sign-up form collecting your details for a product that does not exist. When it is ready, it will be published here and announced on LinkedIn and in the WhatsApp community.
In the meantime, the material this series is built from is already on the site and free to read. The knowledge hub collects the guides, and the calculators are working tools rather than previews.
AK PrintTech Hub Industry Knowledge Series
Volume 1: Practical Print and Packaging Technology
The gap this is meant to fill is a specific one. Standards documents describe what a result should measure. Manufacturer manuals describe one machine. Neither tells an operator what to check first when a job is drifting at three in the morning, or how the pieces of a packaging process connect to each other. That is the space this volume is written for.
The approach throughout is the same one used on this site: explain the mechanism, show the arithmetic, state the assumptions, and be explicit about what a method cannot do.
Who it is for
- Prepress operators who want to understand why a file behaves the way it does on press
- Press crews and supervisors who want a structured method for recurring defects
- QC teams who need measurement practice that stands up in a customer discussion
- Packaging designers who want their artwork to survive production
- Students and new entrants who need the whole chain explained in one place
- Print buyers and production managers who want to ask better questions of suppliers
What it is intended to cover
The outline below is the working plan. It will change as the volume is written, and it is shown here as intent rather than as a finished table of contents.
| Part | Subject |
|---|---|
| 1 | The printing processes and how to choose between them |
| 2 | Substrates and what they do to a printed result |
| 3 | Prepress: artwork to plate, and packaging specifics |
| 4 | Colour: measurement, Delta E, profiles and tolerances |
| 5 | Calibration and the G7 method in production |
| 6 | Flexographic printing: anilox, plates and impression |
| 7 | Production arithmetic: material, waste and consumption |
| 8 | Troubleshooting as a method rather than as guesswork |
| 9 | Records, tolerances and holding a process over time |
Read the material now
Rather than waiting, most of the ground is already covered here and will stay free:
Frequently asked questions
Is the e-book available to buy?
Not yet. Volume 1 is in preparation and nothing is for sale on this page. When it is published it will appear here and be announced on LinkedIn and in the WhatsApp community.
What will the e-book cover?
Practical print and packaging technology: the printing processes, substrates, prepress, colour and measurement, G7 calibration, flexographic printing, production arithmetic and structured troubleshooting. The working outline is listed on this page.
Is there anything I can read now?
Yes. The knowledge hub, the G7 page, the prepress page and the troubleshooting page cover much of the same ground, and the calculators are fully working. All of it is free and stays free.
Related tools and reading
Working on something specific? Send me the process, the substrate and what you have already tried, and I will tell you where to start. Get in touch or message me on WhatsApp.