Flexographic Inks

Flexographic inks are printing inks that are made with cellulose-acetate-propionate ester resin, which is soluble in alcohol and other resins.

Flexographic ink is used in flexographic printing, a method of rotary printing using rubber raised image printing plates, that are affixable to cylinders of various repeat lengths, inked by a roll carrying a fluid ink to virtually any substrate. For every revolution on the printing plate cylinder, an image is produced.

Offset Inks

Offset inks are printing inks used for offset lithography. Such an ink is very finely ground, free from water soluble particles, and contains only lithographic varnish or certain lacquers as the binding medium. It is necessary that the ink be insensitive to sulfur, since this is one of the ingredients of the rubber printing rollers.

This ink is used in offset printing, a method of printing in which the inked image from a lithographic stone, a metal plate or other matrix is first transferred to an intermediary such as a rubber cylinder or blanket and then to paper, thus creating an image in the same direction as the original.