Operate presses to print proofs of plates, monitoring printing quality to ensure that it is adequate.

“Operate presses to print proofs of plates, monitoring printing quality to ensure that it is adequate.” is a supplemental task performed by Prepress Technicians and Workers. Among the occupation's 25 rated tasks, workers place it 19th by importance (#7 most important). About 32% of workers say it is relevant to their job.

This is a single occupation-specific task statement from O*NET. The figures below describe how central the task is to the job and what independent studies measure about AI and this kind of work — not a prediction that the task will be automated.

Work activities this task rolls up to

O*NET groups concrete tasks into broader work activities shared across many occupations.

• Monitor equipment operation. in Monitoring Processes, Materials, or Surroundings
• Operate industrial processing or production equipment. in Controlling Machines and Processes

AI exposure

The OpenAI / Eloundou “GPTs are GPTs” study rates this task E2. Exposure with tools — software built on top of a language model (not the model alone) could cut the time by at least half.

Exposure measures whether a model could meaningfully speed the task up — it is an estimate of overlap with model capabilities, not a measure of whether the work will be done by software. The study's intermediate score (β) for this task is 0.50. Automation potential label: T1.

Other tasks in this occupation

• Generate prepress proofs in digital or other format to approximate the appearance of the final printed piece. · importance 4.7
• Proofread and perform quality control of text and images. · importance 4.7
• Enter, position, and alter text size, using computers, to make up and arrange pages so that printed materials can be produced. · importance 4.6
• Perform "preflight" check of required font, graphic, text and image files to ensure completeness prior to delivery to printer. · importance 4.5
• Operate and maintain laser plate-making equipment that converts electronic data to plates without the use of film. · importance 4.5
• Enter, store, and retrieve information on computer-aided equipment. · importance 4.4
• Select proper types of plates according to press run lengths. · importance 4.4
• Examine finished plates to detect flaws, verify conformity with master plates, and measure dot sizes and centers, using light boxes and microscopes. · importance 4.3
• Examine unexposed photographic plates to detect flaws or foreign particles prior to printing. · importance 4.2
• Examine photographic images for obvious imperfections prior to plate making. · importance 4.0
• Maintain, adjust, and clean equipment, and perform minor repairs. · importance 4.0
• Scale copy for reductions and enlargements, using proportion wheels. · importance 3.9
• Analyze originals to evaluate color density, gradation highlights, middle tones, and shadows, using densitometers and knowledge of light and color. · importance 3.7
• Set scanners to specific color densities, sizes, screen rulings, and exposure adjustments, using scanner keyboards or computers. · importance 3.5

See all tasks on the Prepress Technicians and Workers page.

Sources for this page

Every figure above traces to a named public dataset and the exact release below — not hand-written opinion. See the full methodology for what each measure does and does not mean.

• O*NET 30.3 U.S. Department of Labor / National Center for O*NET Development
• “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130 OpenAI / academic

Data compiled June 2, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.

@misc{singulariki-task-10407,
  title  = {Operate presses to print proofs of plates, monitoring printing quality to ensure that it is adequate.},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130. Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/tasks/task-10407}
}