'Sedalia Democrat' Runs Thermal Plates

By: E&P Staff The Sedalia (Mo.) Democrat announced Friday "a major capital investment ... that will improve print quality for newspaper readers and the company's commercial printing clients."

Publisher Charles Fischer said the Freedom Communications daily will spend $400,000 on the printing plant to "improve the quality of all of our publications and the speed with which we are able to produce them."

The announcement came a day after the 12,000-circulation newspaper distributed the first copies printed from direct-output thermal plates

The Democrat installed a 200-plate-per-hour Newsetter from Kodak Polychrome Graphics, which exposes Anitec thermal plates, and a Nela autoloader and plate bender. The paper reported that KPG technical representative Tracy Holt expects it will be a month or two before CTP performance is optimized.

Pressroom Supervisor John Grimes told his paper that conversion to computer-to-plate output "enables us to print a cleaner product with less water and less ink."

Besides eliminating film and film-processing chemistry, CTP at the Democrat is expected to require less time in production and less ink for less rub-off and produce superior images and color quality.