Prepress workers create printing plates that are used on printing presses.

Prepress workers start each job by examining the artwork, film, or paste-ups. They read the instructions from page layout workers or job orders. They determine how large projects are, whether printing will be color or black and white, and if they need to do any camera work. They may edit or touch up photos.

Prepress workers usually work with electronic files and format the jobs using page layout software. One task is to fit the pages to size of the paper to be used. After formatting the file, but before doing the final printing, technicians create a proof. This is a printed example of how the page will look. Technicians send the proof to clients for review. If there are errors, technicians fix them. When the proof is approved, technicians send the files on for printing.