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| roto garonne |
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| Thursday, 21 June 2007 | |
 Now another chapter begins. Going to press is more epic than can be imagined, more technical and complicated too: 200km separate the offices of ‘French News’ from the printer… about the same length as the paper needed to print the 40,000-plus copies of ‘French News’ each month. The PDF pages are sent via the ether to the computers in the pre-press department at the printers. Here, a photosensitive metal plate is engraved on the CTP (computer-to-plate machine). Each plate carries four pages. The smooth parts will become white while the more porous parts will take the ink during the printing process. The plates are fitted to the gigantic press, like a village on several levels, it weigh tons, and really comes to life as soon as their masters flick the switches in the control kiosk to start it up. How does it manage to perform all the tasks which used to be done by hand?  above: One of these massive paper bobines is used every 40 minutes. Luckily, the paper is recycled Printer Denis Jarry’s description, half swallowed by the roar of the press, makes the monster sound human: with its teeth and hands it grasps and catches, cuts and folds. Each week the creature feeds on 4.5 tonnes of ink and 250 to 350 tonnes of paper to print out 2,300 plates – enough to cover nine football pitches. Each month, 270 different publications are printed – about 60 a week, mainly the local weekly freebies from all over the South-West. Every day, 720,000 copies leave the press, about 500 a minute. This output will be doubled by August when the new premises and machines of Roto Garonne will be ready for use.  above: cyan, magenta, black and yellow, the four colours used to print the full-colour pages of ‘French News’ The vital statistics of ‘French News’ are astonishing, although they represent a mere drop in Roto Garonne’s bucket. ‘French News’ is a medium-sized print run: some titles are printed in 120,000 or 250,000 copies. The cover and central pages are in 60g/m2 quality paper, the other pages are 49g/m2. The 64 pages weigh 190g, plus five grams of ink. ‘French News’ weighs 195g as it comes off the press, but puts on a little weight thanks to humidity in the air during transport. In total, the 64 pages of ‘French News’ swallow 130kg of ink each month and 130km of paper, enough to join Bordeaux to Agen; if all the pages were spread out flat they would cover a surface of 10ha, while all the finished newspapers laid end to end would make a pathway of 11km. |
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