Printing Machine Operators

Overview Nature of Work Knowledge Areas Skills Utilized Job Activities Abilities Job Conditions Work Satisfaction Education/Training

Educational Attainment Breakdown for Printing Machine Operators College or Higher 6.4% Some College 23.4% High School or Less 70.2%

Most Significant Source of Postsecondary Education or Training
Data unavailable
Source: U.S. Department of Labor

Although employers prefer that beginners complete a formal apprenticeship or a postsecondary program in printing equipment operation, many press operators are trained on the job. Attention to detail and familiarity with electronics and computers are essential for operators.

Education and training. Beginning press operators load, unload, and clean presses. With time and training, they may become fully qualified to operate that type of press. Operators can gain experience on more than one kind of printing press during the course of their career.

Experienced operators will periodically receive retraining and skill updating. For example, printing plants that change from sheet-fed offset presses to digital presses have to retrain the entire press crew because skill requirements for the two types of presses are different.

Apprenticeships for press operators, once the dominant method for preparing for this occupation, are becoming less prevalent. When they are offered by the employer, they include on-the-job instruction and related classroom training or correspondence school courses.

Formal postsecondary programs in printing equipment operation offered by technical and trade schools, community colleges, and universities are growing in importance. Postsecondary courses in printing provide the theoretical and technical knowledge needed to operate advanced equipment. Some postsecondary school programs require two years of study and award an associate degree.

Because of technical developments in the printing industry, courses in chemistry, electronics, color theory, and physics are helpful.

Other qualifications. Persons who wish to become press operators need mechanical aptitude to make press adjustments and repairs. Workers need good vision and attention to detail to locate and fix problems with print jobs. Oral and written communication skills also are required. Operators should possess the mathematical skills necessary to compute percentages, weights, and measures, and to calculate the amount of ink and paper needed to do a job. Operators now also need basic computer skills to work with newer printing presses.

Certification and advancement. As press operators gain experience, they may advance in pay and responsibility by working on more complex printing presses. For example, operators who have demonstrated their ability to work with one-color sheet-fed presses may be trained to operate four-color sheet-fed presses. Voluntarily earning formal certification may also help press operators advance. Operators also may advance to pressroom supervisors and become responsible for an entire press crew. In addition, press operators can draw on their knowledge of press operations to become cost estimators, providing estimates of printing jobs to potential customers, sales representatives, and instructors of printing-related courses, or move into other administrative or executive occupations.

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