Aimed at the problem of structural vibration caused by the neutral impact load as the cylinder being turned from the printing working surface to the neutral surface, the neutral impact dynamical characteristics of the variable stiffness printing cylinder were analyzed. The structure design concept of variable stiffness printing cylinder and its static deflection deformation were introduced, while the finite element method was used to study the modal characteristics, critical speed and neutral impact dynamic response of regular printing cylinder and variable stiffness printing cylinder. The results showed that the variable stiffness printing cylinder maintained light weight while its static flexural deformation was much lower than that of the ordinary printing cylinder, and it was advantageous in the aspects of free vibration characteristics, maximum amplitude of response displacement, vibration balance position and vibration attenuation speed, and more stable than the structure of regular printing cylinder.