: How would you print extremely small words (microprinting) The Problem: I am working on a project and I wanted to add super fine print (words and graphics). When I say small I am not referring

@Michele215

My 2 cents.

For really small fonts on comercial offset print I would make a test on the press itself using well controlled 1 bit images using pixel fonts at various resolutions, mainly 2400, 1200 and probably 600 ppi.

Make them one ink only, on a cmyk file it would be only one of those colors or one aditional spot color.

Do not use a big offset printer (like A0) but a high presition small one. (Like A3) becouse on diferent sections of the cylinders you can have diferent quality on the print. If I need to use a big machine I would use a small paper.

Use a sinthetic paper.

I would not use negatives but direct to plate.

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@Margaret771

A round-about method.. But you can reproduce microprint to a scale not possible by standard consumer printers with a standard consumer laser or gel printer (not inkjet) by using non-wood based paper (e.g. Rag paper). Whatever it is you want to print, print it at the smallest scale your printer is capable of printing.

Once your done, take your paper which you've printed on and soak the paper in liquid anhydrous ammonia. Take the paper out of the ammonia and let it dry. As it drys the ammonia will soften the fibers within the paper and create surface tension, and the paper will shrink a small amount (a few millimeters). Repeat this process of soaking and drying the paper and it will continue to shrink a little bit more each time. Since the paper is shrinking, it will also draw the printed characters into a tighter formation, thus reducing the apparent size of the print.

Repeating this process about a dozen times can produce dramatic results.

One negative result is the ammonia, and the tightening of the paper will result in your element result paper being more stiff than it was originally.

You do not want to use standard wood pulp paper because the repeated soaking will begin to dissolve or tear the wood fibers. You don't want to use an inkjet printer because inkjet ink is not resistant to fluids.



Alternatively, if you have access to a laser engraver, you can likely print characters as small as 0.3pt. Laser printers are generally not capable of printing characters smallert than 0.5pt and to do so demands using specific fonts which are specially designed to be readable at such small scale.

Even this Xerox specially designed digital microtext font which, the article states, is 1/100th of an inch in height. 1/100th inch = 0.71999999999999 points. - www.xerox.com/innovation/news-stories/microtext/enus.html

A Comparison of Laser Printed Microprint Fonts

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@Alves566

One outfit I used to work for did security borders for credit cards. These were typeset at least 10x the size of the original and reduced photographically (this was about 20 years ago). One option would be to find an outfit that still does film composition and use them. Some late model imagesetters will also go up to 5000+dpi resolutions, which might be enough to render a security strip.

However, this is only going to be possible through a pre-press process and offset or gravure printing, which will have significant up-front costs.

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@Jessie844

You are talking about microprinting. The whole idea of that, is that you cannot reproduce it by using printers or printing presses. It is engraving that are designed to trip up professional counterfeiters. So, no, I can´t see how on earth it would be possible to pull off. (of course, if you have unlimited resources and good connections in shady parts of town then maybe).

Here are Wikipedias snippet on microprinting.

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