Sanpo-yoshi Communication

Printing Column] Foreign matter that suddenly becomes visible on a certain day

Some people cannot find them at first, and those who can't find them find them for them and mark them with a zero. When one can find one, they can find them one after another. On the same page, a few people will find 2 or 3 zeros, and many people will find 10 zeros. The black dots that you mark with a "0" are called "paper inclusions. They are not only dots, but also line shapes and colors such as red, blue, and gold.

This is foreign matter that enters the pulp when it is made from wood, or that cannot be bleached in the process of making recycled paper, or that has carbonized or chemically reacted with the pulp. When you buy a cup of tea, it says that the suspended matter is fragments of tea leaves, think of it as the same thing. It is considered acceptable by the base paper manufacturer, so most paper products contain it. I ask all newcomers, "Has anyone ever noticed this before?" every year, roughly 30% of them raise their hands. As you would expect, they are just starting out in a printing company.

I've seen them in there but never thought there were that many," "I've never been bothered by them in all the years I've used them," "I was surprised at how many zeros you put on the black dots," "Are these on every page?" and so on, followed by comments such as.

Flowers and stones growing on the road, for example, are not usually visible, but from the day you notice them, they become visible. For example, gray hair, branches of hair, and hair loss in hair are also suddenly noticeable from the day you notice them, even though there should be little difference between yesterday and today. The same is true for foreign matter, which has a tendency to become visible when it is noticed, even if it did not bother you before. Black spots are something that was not there before, but now suddenly appear in all printed materials. This is a common occurrence at printing companies.

I heard this story once from another printing company. I have heard an anecdote that they printed 300,000 copies of a palm-sized cosmetic box when they were asked for three boxes with no foreign matter or stains. It is so commonplace that adulteration is a part of everyday life, yet most people are not even aware of its existence.

In addition to adulterants, the training program introduced the structure of package production, including the format of the box, ease of opening, paper thickness, and paper grain, all of which we had not paid attention to before, and made us wonder "What kind of paper is this? What color is the printing? What is the surface treatment? Can this be glued by a machine? and so on. I hope that newcomers will grow in their interest in various paper products and become useful to our customers, and I am thrilled and excited every time I hear more and more maniacal questions from them.