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Setting up for Offset
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Setting up for Offset
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Overview
This topic describes how to update your offset presses and change their status. With offset, changing the status affects pricing. That's why an offset press should never be taken off line because it's down for a few days, waiting for a part to come in. The only reason you would deactivate your four-color press is because you don't have a four-color press, real or virtual. It's a way of telling Morning Flight to automatically assign all four-color runs to the two-color press, twice through. In other words, to calculate four-color prices not at the four-color rate, but at the two-color rate times two.
In a nutshell: Taking an offset press off line won't change the number of colors you can quote. What it will do, without fail, is change your pricing.
Changing the Status
Click the My Shop button, then check or uncheck the press to change its status.
Or, click Presses, then click the Delete button in the press selection window to take the highlighted press off line. Clicking the same button when a check-mark is showing will reinstate the press. A press that's off-line will have a red bullet in front of it.
The one-color offset press can't be taken off line. Morning Flight assumes that virtually every offset shop either has such a press, or at least offers one-color printing.
Updating the Press
| 1. | Click the My Shop button, then click Presses. |
| 2. | Double-click the press you want to update. |
| 3. | Enter the number of printheads (Units) and the Hourly Rate. |
The price in the upper black panel updates as you type. This speeds up finding the right hourly rate. If you swipe the cursor over the three icons, you'll instantly see the letterhead, envelope, and catalog sheet prices that will result from the rate you entered. Clicking one of the icons will lock in the product you want to use as your main reference. To view different quantities, click the up arrow. To change those quantities (they're the same as your personal preference for quotes), go to My World > My Preferences.
| 4. | Click the Sheetsize buttons to set minimum and maximum sheet sizes. |
| 5. | Check or uncheck the plates available for this press, then enter Plate Prices (not your cost, but what you charge your customers), excluding film. |
| 6. | Click the Standard Plate button, then set your preferred plate. The standard plate is what Morning Flight selects when it sees AutoSet as a plate choice in a product's properties. |
| 7. | Enter Average Makeready and Maximum Speed. The defaults are: |
Offset Press |
Average Makeready |
Maximum Speed |
1-Color |
10 Minutes |
7,500 IPH |
2-Color |
15 Minutes |
10,000 IPH |
4-Color |
30 Minutes |
8,000 IPH |
In Morning Flight, there are two kinds of makeready and run speed. Product makeready is a property of the product, not the press, ranging from very low to very high. So is product run speed. Both are unique to each product and are set (in the product window you see below) when you change or create a product.
Average makeready, the makeready you're setting in step 7 for your offset presses, is a property of the press, and is a contributing factor in how Morning Flight calculates the actual makeready minutes. Similarly, maximum press speed is a contributing factor in computing the total run time.
But maximum speed is more than a speed limit. It's a yardstick for setting the day-to-day working speeds at which the press can print different stocks without excessive wear and tear. Other factors that come into play are the type of paper and the run length. The longer the run, the higher the actual run speed.
See also
