An Adhesive Printing Form Attachment Layer comprises a permanently sticky layer, characterized in that the Adhesive Printing Form Attachment Layer is in the shape of a tube, preferably a seamless tube, and the permanently sticky layer forms at least the outer surface of the tube. The Adhesive Printing Form Attachment Layer can be used to adhesively fix a printing plate, preferably a flexographic printing plate, to a printing cylinder during the printing operation. The Adhesive Printing Form Attachment layer provides for easy replacement and easy installation on a printing sleeve or printing cylinder. Also provided are an assembly, comprising an adhesive printing form attachment layer according to the invention mounted on a printing sleeve, and a method of operating a printing machine, the method comprising forming the assembly by pulling the adhesive printing form attachment layer over the printing sleeve.

The present invention discloses a printing unit with an automated sleeve change process. A sleeve can be prepared for the next printing job while the current job is running, thereby reducing the changeover time. Also, the printing unit can handle printing sleeves of very different sizes without any special additional adjustments to be made. The printing unit translates the printing roller and the inking roller on a horizontal line to engage and dis-engage the printing roller. The invention is convenient for large printing sleeves because the sleeve can be slipped over a shaft that remains in the unit. The setup results in a very rigid system, which guarantees an excellent printing quality.

The invention discloses an inking system for a rotary printing machine, like a flexographic or rotogravure press. The inking system uses the nip area between two cylinders of the machine as the sole source for inking the printing cylinder. This results in an inking system with very little ink, thereby gaining in reaction time and ink waste.

An application unit includes an application mechanism having an application cylinder, a forme cylinder, and a supply roller, along with a positioning device. The positioning device has a linear guide and the application unit has a magazine for supply rollers, preferably located below the application mechanism, the magazine having magazine receptacles each for receiving one supply roller. The magazine has a repositioning device, by the use of which the magazine receptacles can be placed in different magazines positions. By the use of the positioning device, a supply roller can be moved along a linear roller positioning path, one end of which is identical to a supply position and the other end of which is identical to a magazine position of the magazine that is configured as a change position. The positioning device preferably has at least one transfer supporting member, which is arranged to be movable in and counter to a positioning direction relative to the frame of the flexographic application mechanism, guided along the at least one linear guide, and on which at least one component of a bearing seat can be arranged, which is configured to receive a rolling bearing arranged on the at least one supply roller.

An inking system for use in transferring ink to a flexographic printing plate in a flexographic printing system includes an anilox member having an ink transfer zone located between first and second recessed bearing contact zones. A radius of the recessed bearing contact zones is less than a radius of the ink transfer zone by at least 0.100 inches. An ink tray includes a floor and first and second end walls. Bearings are mounted outside of the end walls which engage with the first and second bearing contact zones, respectively, thereby positioning the ink tray assembly in a specified position relative to the anilox member. Upper edges of the end walls extend into the recessed bearing contact zones.

A method is provided of digitally imaging a secure portion and a non-secure portion of scratch-off-coating protected documents of at least one game using middleware. The method includes: (a) generating the secure variable indicia in non-vector raster format; (b) generating vector graphics to be imaged on physical document locations; (c) assigning the secure variable indicia in a non-vector raster format to documents in and shuffling the documents throughout a print run; and (d) linking via middleware the secure variable indicia in the non-vector raster format to associated vector graphics variable indicia to be digitally imaged on the documents and to generate vector graphics-formatted data for each document in the print run. The secure variable indicia assignment and shuffling are executed by non-vector raster game generation software output that is reinterpreted by the middleware to produce related vector graphic output for the secure variable indicia.

A substantially tubular interchangeable sleeve is adapted for applying a printing or coating liquid to a substrate material or offset roller. The sleeve has a multi-layer construction primarily consisting of a first outer layer of a dimensionally stable substantially fluid-impregnable solid material, such as aluminum or steel, around the exterior surface of which is affixed or applied a print or coating liquid receiving plate or layer. The sleeve further comprises one or more further interior layers of relatively less dimensionally stable, compressible, usually fibrous materials disposed inwardly of the interior surface of the first layer which, under air pressure, can be compressed so as to enlarge the inner dimensions of the sleeve so that it can be slid over a suitable bridge mandrel. The sleeve further comprises at least one end ring of a dimensionally stable substantially fluid-impregnable solid material.

A control apparatus of a web processing system that executes predetermined processing onto a web continuously existing along a movement passage, in which the web processing system includes a rotating body that rotates while being in contact with the web, and the control apparatus controls a rotation speed of the rotating body such that a circumferential speed of the rotating body at a contact surface with the web matches a transport speed of the web.

A high-quality photosensitive resin composition is disclosed which not only exhibits a reduced adhesion of dust, dirt, and paper powder to a relief and a good resistance to a UV ink but also allows a storage of a printing original plate for a long period of time, even if this plate is a plate in a low hardness to be used for a flexographic printing. A water-developable photosensitive resin composition for flexographic printing contains at least a polyamide and/or a polyamide block copolymer (a), a cross-linking agent having one or more unsaturated group(s) (b), a photo-polymerization initiator (c), and a fatty acid ester (d), wherein the fatty acid ester (d) has two or more hydroxyl groups and 11 to 23 carbon atoms in a molecule, and wherein a content of the fatty acid ester (d) in the photosensitive resin composition is 0.2 to 6% by weight.

A method of encrypting at least a portion of PostScript vector language, where the PostScript vector language includes a cleartext portion and a ciphertext portion, the method including: (a) encrypting at least a part of the PostScript cleartext portion via an encryption algorithm with a generated encryption key resulting in at least a part of the ciphertext portion and overwriting the PostScript cleartext portion with the resulting at least part of the ciphertext portion; (b) saving the encryption key in a file separate from a file containing the PostScript vector language; (c) linking both the encryption key file and the PostScript file in an image processor interpreting the PostScript vector language to display or print PostScript graphics; (d) decrypting the at least part of the ciphertext portion resulting in decrypted PostScript cleartext; and (e) executing the resulting decrypted Postscript cleartext to produce an image on a document or screen.