Sales and Customer Service Team

Your Customer Service Representative (CSR) is your principal contact from the time you send in an order until it ships. If you have been working with a sales associate prior to an order actually arriving, you will now start working with your CSR. For the best service, count on your CSR to be your main point of contact at United Graphics, Inc. This department's main focus is communication, both internally and externally, so all questions, instructions, proofs, copy, shipping instructions, etc. should be directed to your CSR!

The best thing you can do as a customer to help us help you is to send in ALL components - copy, fonts, graphics, specifications, instructions, etc. - at one time, when the order is originally sent in!

If at any time something is not clear, please ask. We want to address all areas of possible confusion quickly to assure that the final result is what you expect. No question is too basic; we believe that it is better to answer questions early than fix a problem later on.

Have you met our Sales and Customer Service team? Stop in and get to know them here!

(Top of Page)

Welcome to the Prepress Department. A simple definition of the Prepess function is this: to take in electronic documents and produce a proof and plates for the printing of your book. It sounds easy, but in reality, this production process can be complex and time consuming depending upon how complex your job is and how well prepared your files are. The information we provide here is to help you better understand this process and make your Prepress experience enjoyable.

Let's take a quick look at the desktop-to-print process:

The first step starts with you, The Customer. Armed with desktop tools, you design, typeset, layout and laserproof the job. If you have any questions regarding compatibility, contact United Graphics, Inc. early in your production process for a "test job" to ensure compatibility. Your "live job" should then run smoothly when we receive it.

Once we receive your electronic job, it is checked to ensure that all the components of the job are in place. Are all of the fonts there? All of the graphics? Do we have laser copy? Are the colors correct? Once the file is checked and approved, it is prepared for output to a digital proofer and sent for approval. When the proof returns, changes are made and the job is output to a high-resolution platesetter,and plates are checked against the proof.

Of course, this is a simplified version of what happens in Prepress. There are so many things that can go wrong and delay printing. To aid our customers in creating trouble-free disks, check out our Guide to Electronic Submissions page.

(Top of Page)

Press

United Graphics, Inc. currently has over 30,000 square feet of press space. Our presses are sheet-fed and can run up to 26"x40" sheets in one to five colors. For more information on our presses, see our Equipment List.

Quality Control is a key issue at United Graphics, Inc., and it starts long before your book hits the presses. In Prepress, all aspects of your job are monitored from the time it arrives until your books are shipped. Before a plate can be run, it must be approved and signed by the plate checker. In the Press Room, each press has its own densitometer to measure ink density. Each skid of printed covers are checked by hand, as well as each completed perfectbound and saddlebound book. Quality checkers look for missing sigs and examine overall print quality before your books are packaged and shipped to ensure that what you get is what you expected.

(Top of Page)

Bindery

United Graphics, Inc. is able to bind your book in several ways: Perfectbound, Saddlebound, Wire-O, Spiral Wire, Plasticoil, or Comb Bound.

The Perfectbinding machine is basically a long conveyer belt with several stops along the way. First the printed and folded sheets are collated together to make a "Fold & Gather" (F&G). This F&G then travels down the belt to the saw. The saw trims 1/8" off of the bind edge of the F&G so binding glue can be applied between the individual pages. The F&G is run over rollers covered with hot glue and then is sent to be bound with the cover.

The next step on the conveyer belt is the 3-knife. Here is where the paperbound book is trimmed to its final size. All of the folds are cut off along with extra cover material. This opens up the text pages and makes the cover flush. At United Graphics, Inc. every perfectbound title is checked by the Page Pull Tester to ensure that binding was performed correctly and that no pages pull out.

Another form of binding is called Saddlebinding. This operation is more appropriate for smaller books or catalogs with page counts of 100 or less. A saddlebinding machine actually binds and trims three sides of the book in one operation. The signatures are pulled open and dropped in proper order onto a moving "saddle". The assembled signatures receive a cover in the same manner and then pass under the stitching heads where wire staples are applied. They are then turned on their side and travel into the trimmer.

United Graphics, Inc. is also capable of binding books with Spiral Wire, Wire-O, Plasticoil, or Comb.

Our bindery deparment also does special finishing work that cannot be done by the binding machines. Depending upon customer specifications, this step may involve machine drilling (holes placed along the spine), shrinkwrapping (machine wrapping of single or multiple copies in clear plastic),or a variety of other steps requested by the customer.

United Graphics, Inc. outsources case binding when that need arises.

(Top of Page)

Shipping

The final step is to place the finished books in cartons, label the cartons, and ship them off to the customer or a designated storage facility.

(Top of Page)

To view a Video Tour of our plant, please click here.