Digital vs flexographic label printing
Digital printing is plateless — data drives the press, so there is no plate cost, near-zero make-ready, and every label can differ.
Digital printing is plateless — data drives the press, so there is no plate cost, near-zero make-ready, and every label can differ. Flexo transfers ink from a flexible plate, needing one plate per color (hundreds to thousands of dollars a set) but running very fast at very low unit cost in volume. Flexo nails spot/Pantone matching; digital approximates via CMYK with some variance on neons and metallics. Digital supports variable data (unique codes per label); flexo does not. Hybrid presses print the fixed art in flexo and overlay variable data digitally.
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wax, wax-resin, resin
UV inkjet jets ink that is cured instantly by UV light, sitting on the surface rather than soaking in, so it works on nearly any substrate — paper, film, foil, clear — and is fast-drying, low-VOC, scuff-resistant, and vivid.
barcodes, serials, personalization
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