Although completion of a formal apprenticeship or a postsecondary program in printing equipment operation continues to be the best way to learn the trade, most printing machine operators are trained on the job while they work as assistants or helpers to experienced operators. Beginning press operators load, unload, and clean presses. With time and training, they may move up to become fully qualified press operators on the type of equipment on which they trained. Some operators gain experience on many kinds of printing presses during the course of their career.
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 usually include on-the-job instruction and some related classroom training or correspondence school courses. Apprenticeships used to be for a fixed period of time, but now completion is based on ability to demonstrate competencies.
In contrast, formal postsecondary programs in printing equipment operation offered by technical and trade schools, community colleges, and universities are growing in importance. Some postsecondary school programs require 2 years of study and award an associate degree. Postsecondary courses in printing are increasingly important because they provide the theoretical and technical knowledge needed to operate advanced equipment.
Persons who wish to become printing machine operators need mechanical aptitude to make press adjustments and repairs. Oral and writing 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. Because of technical developments in the printing industry, courses in chemistry, electronics, color theory, and physics are helpful.
Technological changes have had a tremendous effect on the skills needed by printing machine operators. New presses now require operators to possess basic computer skills. Even experienced operators 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.
Printing machine operators may advance in pay and responsibility by working on a more complex printing press. Through experience and demonstrated ability, for example, a one-color sheet-fed press operator may become a four-color sheet-fed press operator. Others may advance to pressroom supervisor and become responsible for an entire press crew. Press operators can also draw on their knowledge of press operations to become cost estimators, providing estimates of printing jobs to potential customers.