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But there are limits to what your inkjet can do. You may have noticed that it's not amazingly fast. It won't print business cards, except on those perforated business card sheets that aren't quite thick enough and always look like they were perforated. It's probably not very good at printing on both sides of the paper, and almost certainly useless at folding, stapling and varnishing.

For more demanding jobs, you need the old-fashioned kind of printer: the one with inky fingers who sucks his teeth when he sees your artwork. Except that printers aren't quite like that any more. In this guide to short run printing, we'll explain how to find someone suitable for small jobs, how to prepare your job to avoid problems, and what kind of results you can expect.

The technology of printing

The service a printer can offer depends first and foremost on the presses used. Until the mid-1990s, almost all everyday colour printing was done on offset litho presses, varying from small sheet-fed units to the giant web (roll-fed) presses used for magazines and newspapers. Litho is still going strong, but over the past few years the short run market has been increasingly dominated by digital print. This takes several forms, the common principle being that the image to be printed is formed 'on the fly' within the press, rather than on plates that have to be manufactured for each job.

One of the best known options is HP's Indigo (http://h30267.www3.hp.com/country/us/en/products/digital_ presses), which uses a technology known as ElectroInk. Particles of colour are suspended in oil and attracted electrostatically onto an image transferred

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to the paper from a drum. It's a sort of cross between an offset press and a photocopier.

The second common type of press is toner-based, exemplified by Xerox's DocuColor range. These are effectively scaled-up laser printers, but once again with a quality of output rivalling offset litho. Another established maker is Xeikon, which specialises in web-fed units that print both sides of the paper at once for higher productivity.

Litho printers can also take advantage of digital processes. 'Direct imaging' (DI) presses incorporate instant platemaking, so pages can be sent straight to the press. Leading maker Heidelberg has recently discontinued its DI presses, however, in favour of CTP (computer to plate), where a separate machine produces plates that are then loaded onto a litho press.

Digital typically offers faster turnaround than litho for short runs, but you can expect to be quoted no more than two or three days either way. For straightforward jobs, 24 hours is commonplace, and if your printer is local it's not unreasonable to ask for same-day service. If possible, however, it makes a lot of sense to give yourself more breathing space. Not every job goes straight through without a hitch, and you'll only have yourself to blame if you don't allow enough time to check a proof and fix any problems.

Know what you're getting

Each technology has its strengths and weaknesses. Litho is the quality benchmark, and presses can handle a full range of paper weights and textures, while digital presses are typically limited to a maximum of 300-350gsm, just adequate for a business card. The main catch is that litho isn't cost-effective for short runs. Andy Stevens, director of e-digiprint.com, operates both digital and offset presses and puts the crossover point at about 500 copies. Then again, Paragon (paragonprinting.co.uk) runs only litho, using both DI and CTP, and will take orders from 100, depending on the nature of the job. Nick Murray, production director of Wellington Press (wpdigital.co.uk), points out: 'It's not always price, sometimes it's time.' Large quantities of a simple job will tie up a digital press for hours, but a complex job such as a multi-page book might be slower to set up on litho.