Printing press using shiftable inking means

A lithographic printing press comprising:

• an imprinting cylinder train having a plurality of elongated, axially rotatable cylinders including a pair of adjacent nip-defining cylinders for receiving therebetween a material to be imprinted;
• an inking roller train having a plurality of elongated, axially rotatable inking rollers including an ink-receiving roller and at least one ink-transfer roller in operative contact with a cylinder of said imprinting train, for conveying ink from the ink-receiving roller to said imprinting train;
• means for operatively supporting said imprinting and inking trains;
• an inking assembly adapted for connection to a supply of viscous lithographic ink, said assembly including
• an inking element including an ink outlet for depositing ink onto said ink-receiving roller;
• means for operatively coupling said element and said supply of ink for passage of ink from the supply to the element, including structure defining an ink-flow path leading from the supply to the element;
• selectively actuatable ink-flow control means operatively interposed in said ink-flow path, said ink-flow control means including means for pressurizing ink received from said supply and supplying pressurized ink to said inking element, and for permitting selective, alternate delivery of ink from said outlet and termination of said ink delivery therefrom;
• means for mounting said element adjacent said ink-receiving roller with the element outlet in an ink-depositing orientation, and for translatory movement of the element axially along the length of the ink-receiving roller;
• and
• operational means operatively connected with said ink flow control means for operation of the latter during said translatory movement of said element in order to deposit preselected variable quantities of ink onto said ink-receiving roller at different positions, said operational means comprising
• means for determining the position of said element along the length of said ink-receiving roller during said translatory movement of said element, and for producing a position signal indicative of a position of the element at at least certain locations along the path of travel of the element;
• memory means for electronically storing data representative of said preselected variable quantities of ink to be deposited onto said ink-receiving roller at said different positions along the length thereof;
• and
• control means operatively coupled with said position-determining means, said memory means and said ink flow control means for receiving said position signals from said determining means, for selecting certain of said stored data in response to respective position signals, and for selectively actuating said ink flow control means in accordance with said selected data to deposit variable quantities of ink onto said ink-receiving roller at said different positions along the length thereof.