Abstract: For coating or printing plastic films with hydrous coating agents, solvent-containing coating agents or mixtures thereof, UV-curable lacquers or inks as well as PVC pastes and, in particular, for printing with water soluble inks, the foil is deposited on a substrate in order to avoid excessively long drying paths and in order to enable the adherence to an exact print repeat, and said film is heated until an adhesion has been produced, is subsequently cooled while remaining on the substrate, is coated or, respectively, printed while remaining to adhere to the substrate, is subsequently dried and, finally, is cooled and removed from the substrate. The adhesion of the film on the substrate established after the formation of the adhesion is thereby also preserved after the cooling before the coating or printing.