About PressBench
An estimating bench for a print shop too small to run estimating software.
The job it does
PressBench lays a finished size out on a press sheet, counts the sheets an order needs once makeready and spoilage are added, prices the job by the digital route and the offset route, plans a saddle-stitched booklet with its creep, and prints a quote. Jobs, stocks, rate profiles and saved quotes stay in local storage on your own device. There is no account.
Where the tables come from
The tables inside the 6 guides are return values from the estimator's own functions (imposeOnSheet, usableArea, breakEven and bookletPlan, reading the 2 built-in rate profiles), so a guide shows what the tool in the next tab would show. On the reference pages, the 20 sheet sizes are the customary US cut and press sizes alongside the ISO 216 A and B series, and the 15 paper weight rows pair US pound weights with grams per square metre, rounded the way the trade commonly publishes them.
Credit and dates
Guides appear under the PressBench name only. There is no personal byline, no masthead and no biography; in each guide's markup the listed author is the PressBench organization. A guide's date moves whenever its wording is revised.
Who runs it
One independent developer builds and runs PressBench, along with other single-trade reference sites, among them EngiRef for engineering tables, SpanRef for framing spans, ThreadRef for screw threads and SidewallRef for tire sizes. None of them knows anything about print.
Where an estimate stops
PressBench has never seen your press. It does not know today's paper price, your vendor's minimum, the largest sheet your folder takes, which way the grain must run on a cover that scores, or what your market will bear. It turns the rates you enter into a planning figure, and a planning figure is not a quote.
- Confirm live stock pricing and availability before giving a customer a number.
- Check every layout against the real press and bindery: maximum sheet, image area, gripper and tail, fold capacity, grain direction.
- Tax, freight, outside services and proofing are inputs you supply.
- Nothing here is a colour-managed proof, and imposition arithmetic is not prepress approval.
PressBench has no affiliation with any press maker, paper mill, merchant or standards body. ISO 216 is named only to identify the sheet series.
Corrections
Found a wrong figure? Mail [email protected] and say which page and which number. Data handling and conditions of use live in the privacy policy and the terms.