Intaglio printing. The Bureau prints currency on high-speed, sheet-fed rotary presses which are capable of printing over 8,000 sheets per hour. Printing plates are covered with ink and then the surface of each plate is wiped clean which allows the ink to remain in the design and letter grooves of the plates. Each sheet is then forced, under extremely heavy pressure (estimated at 20 tons), into the finely recessed lines of the printing plate to pick up the ink. The printing impression is three dimensional in effect and requires the combined handiwork of highly skilled artists, steel engravers, and plate printers. The surface of the note feels slightly raised, while the reverse side feels slightly indented.

By rotogravure we mean a process in which the impression is produced by etched plates. The etched area is ink resistant so that the non-etched areas deliver the ink to the rollers of a rotary printing press. This process is more exact and more secure against forgeries.

In the beginning of the 19th century, the copper engraving process and later the steel engraving process grew in use. Collectors cherish the highly illustrated bills of the United States of the 19th century.

By flat-bed printing process we mean that the printing and non-printing areas on a plate are on the same level. The plate is chemically altered so that the printing areas take on the ink only. Well known in this category are lithography and offset printing. Orell Fuessli used the rotogravure and offset process in his design for the new Swiss bank notes.

A further technique mostly to make securities papers counterfeit-safe is the Guillochen (named after it's inventor Guillot). This technique makes symbolic figures that snake in among themselves made of fine linen that can only be made with the help from an expensive Guillochier machine.