How are your newspapers made? Behind the scenes at Happiedays

Have you ever wondered how your newspapers are made? Find out here as we take you behind the scenes for an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at Happiedays. Discover the journey your newspaper makes before it’s dropped in your letterbox.

As soon as you’re done designing your newspaper and have placed your order, we take over! Whilst making your newspaper, you’ll have been given access to a low-resolution PDF preview of your design. This is done in order to make sure that the online editor can keep working at a high speed. As soon as you place your order, a high-resolution PDF is generated for the first time. This is the PDF that is used when printing your paper.

As soon as you’ve finalised your order, this high-resolution PDF enters automated flow. As part of this flow, the PDF firstly passes through a photo-editing programme in order to optimise the quality of the photos you’ve used. After that, your newspaper is sent directly to the printer.

The rest of the process takes place in the print shop. Here, you can find one of the world’s largest digital printers, ready to start printing your newspaper. When the PDF of your newspaper arrives at the print shop it is automatically added to the queue. All the ordered newspapers are printed consecutively on a paper bobbin. A single paper bobbin can print up to 20 km of Happiedays newspapers, at a speed of 127 metres per minute. That’s a lot of “happie” days per hour! It’s also thanks to this digital printing technology that we can print single copy orders. And all this can be done with hardly any manual intervention!

Once all the newspapers have been printed onto the paper bobbin, the paper is placed onto the bindery. Here, the paper is firstly warmed up to ensure that the ink is dry and is then statically charged in order to make sure that the sheets of paper that belong together, stay together.

After this the paper is cut into different sheets. The sheets belonging to the same newspaper are subsequently placed together. These sheets are then folded at the end of the bindery. The newspapers are now ready!

Interesting fact! Whilst printing, small QR codes are placed in the margins of your newspaper. These are continuously scanned on the bindery and ensure that any missing newspapers are detected: if a newspaper is damaged during the cutting process, for example, they are pulled from the production process. This damaged newspaper will then immediately and automatically be reinstated in the printing queue. This way, we are guaranteed that every order is printed and completed.

All that’s left to do now is to package and ship your newspaper(s). This is the final step of the process. But before we do that, we do a final check: we check for the quality of your newspaper, we make sure that your order contains the correct amount of copies, and we make sure that the sheets of your newspaper are in the correct sequence. Depending on the number of copies, the order is shipped either in a sealed envelope, or in a cardboard box.

…And the next thing you know, it’s in your letterbox!

Do you have any more questions about the production process? Don’t hesitate to Contact Us!