It is obvious that recent prepress processes are heavily dependent on computers and information technologies. Environments of prepress have dramatically changed during the last decade. The Internet made it possible to establish high speed and inexpensive network. Therefore, bulk DTP data can be transferred without leased line network. Press proofing systems became radically minor system. Instead of them, DDCPs (Direct Digital Color Proofs) have become more conspicuous. Windows DTPs have appeared. However, Macintosh DTPs are still majority. Their CPU clocks are ten times higher than ten-year old ones. Scanners are replaced with digital still cameras as image input devices. Image data are viewed on liquid crystal displays (LCDs) instead of CRT ones. Color management systems (CMS) have been commonly used. A Series of Japan Colors that is a standard of printed color in Japan has been established and published. Usage rate of Computer to Plate (CTP) is around 90%. In this chapter, overviews of the following issues are described.: The Environment of Prepress Process, The Trend of Key Technology of Prepress, Diversification on Digital font in Japanese DTP, changes of prepress workflows, market trends of digital proofing systems, The Transition of RIP Systems, Computer to Plates, JDF workflows, Digital Assets Management, and Software Solutions for Print On Demand, are described.

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This chapter entitled "Paper Media" focuses on a variety of significant subjects of paper media or printing media as well as their peripheral issues. Although "Paper Media" is the sole and universal media selected in the long history of mankind and constitutes one of the essential elements of printing, "Paper Media" had been described only in separate chapters of the past decennial commemorative issues of this journal. However, this 80th anniversary special issue creates an independent individual chapter for "Paper Media". The main reason is the founding of "Paper Media Research Committee" in 2004 in the society (JSPST). Firstly, the reason and the significance for creating an independent chapter for "Paper Media" are explained. Secondly, eight specific topics covering history, characteristics & functions, market & customer, technological evolution, culture & art, environmental issues, theoretical analysis, and future perspective are described as the basis for understanding the specific topics and the contents of "Paper Media Symposia". Thirdly, the personal impressions on the past four "Paper Media Symposia" from 2004 to 2007 are briefly noted. Fourthly, a quick glance over "drupa 2008" held in Germany is mentioned with the view to grasp the forefront of the paper media technology. A variety of unsolved significant problems were emerged from the past four paper media symposia covering an array of versatile topics. The comparative evaluation of paper media with IT-based media as well as the symposia contents helped confirming the superiority of paper media among the present-day multilayered media structure. Finally, an idea for integrating a variety of academic fields related to paper media that leads to construction of "Paper Media Studies" is proposed (written by F. Onabe).

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Offset printing is the most common form of high-volume commercial and newspaper printing, due to advantages in quality and efficiency in high-volume jobs. Technologies of this decade are improved with printing plate, printing ink, printing paper, offset press⁄blanket⁄roller and post-press. While modern digital presses are getting closer to the cost⁄benefit of offset for high-quality work, they have not yet been able to compete with the overpowering volume of product that an offset press can produce. Furthermore, many modern offset presses are using computer to plate systems as opposed to the older computer to film workflows, which further increases their quality.

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In the 2000's, there were turning points from the depression in the 90's to the greatest prosperity after the war. In addition, it was the period that was needed to solve environment problems based on new laws and regulations in the gravure industry. According to the change of eating habits, high functional materials had been advanced in the field of packaging. Various boiling retorts foods and frozen foods popularized, consequently the barrier characteristics and heat resistance of packing films were demanded. Especially, the innovation in the field of the after processing like lamination was particularly remarkable. Biological decomposition films and biological decomposition inks that were suggested as environmental preservation were new environmental technologies. In addition, it is the period when the flexography that was predominant in environmental preservation was also progressed in its quality. On the other hand, publication gravure has been decreasing. In this chapter, the innovation in each field from film matrix to inks, presses, processing, and environmental preservation was described.

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The market and technical developments for flexo printing system in Japan was behind to Europe and America. Today's market share of flexo printing in Japanese printing industry is only 9% and most field of flexo printing is occupied by corrugated cardboard printing and paper bag printing. Flexo printing has a lot of advantages, such as the use of environment-friendly inks, suitability to printing with many varieties of small lot and short delivery date and energy saving high speed printing. Printing quality in flexo printing has improved and come to be almost comparable with gravure printing or offset printing thanks to technical innovation namely high-performance printing press, high-quality ceramic anilox roll, chambered doctor-blade system, digital plate-making system and so on. Recently in Japan much interest for flexo printing process has been increased especially in flexible packaging industry, due to current environmental issues and demand for cost reduction. At present some issues for expanding of flexo market have been pointed out. These include cost reduction of materials and machines, improvement of performance of water based on flexo ink, and development of prepress technology suitable for flexo. Flexo printing is expected to be improved in performance, replace gravure printing in flexible packaging industry and offset printing in carton industry and be used in new markets in near future. It has been pointed out that the combination of flexo printing with other printing systems, such as offset printing and gravure printing will lead to creation of new demands and new markets.

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Screen printing technology has been improved to performing fine resolution and high accuracy during this decade. The plate making methods and various wire meshes for screen printing were explained and compared to each other in this chapter. Especially, the advance has made screen printing technology apply to fabrication of printed circuits, flat display panels and semiconductor chips. The advance of material technology in ink made functional thick films possible to expand applications. It is very important to care the safety and environment issue in the system now. We described new trend of digital stencil duplicator. The printing machines have been able to print bicolor simultaneously and double face printing. They reduce the amount of consumed papers to run down the environmental load. In the future of screen printing technology, "homeostasis" and "integration with external environment" are important ideas.

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NIP (Non-impact printing) technology made a marked advance in 70's and 80's. Now, we can hardly see impact printers like wire-dot printer in offices. Non-impact printers are the most popular printing equipments. Printing with NIP technology is called "Plate-less Printing" or "Digital Printing" in Japan. The feature of it is that time to obtain first print is short. It is suitable method for the print of many varieties and a small amount. Therefore, it has established the position in the market. NIP technology is advancing in speed and image quality, and is competing with common printing technology. Recently, the other use of NIP technology has been developed. For instance, ink jet technology is applied to making electric circuits. Thus NIP technology is being widely applied in other industries. In this chapter, the overview of the NIP technology is described in section 1. The typical NIP technologies, Electrophotography and ink jet printing technologies are described in section 2 and 3, respectively. Trend of digital printing in graphic market is described in section 4.

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A word "printing" is widely recognized as technologies for information processing. By the way, printing ink consist of pigments, resins, and some variety of chemicals, from this viewpoint, we can see the word for material conversion and it is defined as "the technology for simultaneous film formation and patterning" Actually, current electronic display manufacturing uses variety of printing and patterning technologies, e.g., alignment layer printing for LCD, phosphor patterning for PDP, etc. In this chapter, developments of following electronic displays, plasma display panel (PDP), organic light-emitting diode (OLED), liquid crystal display (LCD), electronic paper, field emission display (FED), and inorganic fluorescent display, are reviewed. In addition, novel patterning technology for the future, and hot topics of energy devices and biotechnologies are also described.

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TC130, which is Technical Committee of ISO (International Organization for Standardization), is doing the examination work of International Standard establishment of the Graphic Technology. Standardization is performed by five Working Groups. WG1 is standardizing terminology. In WG2, the standardization about the prepress digital data exchange is performed. WG3 is standardizing process control and measurement. The main work of WG4 is standardization of printing material. WG5 is standardizing safety requirements for graphic technology equipment and systems. In this paper, the situation of the standardization activity of each WG will be introduced. In addition, as a part of the standardization activity of the Japanese Society of Printing Science and Technology, there will be an explanation of the outline of color control, the Japan color, and observation conditions.

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In the last 10 years, Japanese response to environmental issues have changed. Different from the pollution era, Japan has taken wide-range actions against regional environment issues and global environment issues including global warming. Printing and related industries (printing machine, printing ink, prepress, paper) have also undertaken efforts to reduce environmental load. The printing industry has been focusing on the Basic Law for Establishing the Recycling-based Society and Law on Promoting Green Purchasing, and has achieved the results. The printing machine industry carries out the environmental research and study, and announces the results to the society through their reports. The printing ink industry promotes environment-friendly inks through international efforts to control chemicals. Also, the prepress industry contributes to printing industries through the promotion of environmental measures and digitalization. The paper industry is dealing with various issues, such as global warming, chemical control, resources, waste and etc. 3 recycling-papers, forests and energies are the central core of their efforts. Thus, printing and related industries consider environmental issues to be the priority and unavoidable, and are making efforts to contribute environmental conservation.

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