TRADITIONAL:
• Individual pieces of film from the camera or the filmsetter are assembled-- "stripped"--manually into "flats" that place type, artwork, and other page elements into position for burning the plate.

• One set of flats is made for each color to be printed. Pages must be stripped into flats for correct imposition.

• A stripper's tools include a light table, razor blades, tape, "goldenrod" (an opaque mounting material) and a ruler. Manual stripping is a vanishing art!

DIGITAL:
• Since layout applications like QuarkXPress and PageMaker build pages with all elements in place, files created with these programs can be used to generate fully composed page images. No hand assembly is needed.

• Imposition software such as ImpoStrip can take PostScript, PDF, or "native" page layout files and automatically assemble them into the desired positions for plating and printing.