Print Buying Direct

Print Finishing – 29th September 2009

With the continuing popularity of digital printing, it won’t come as any surprise that the main focus for finishing technology from suppliers in 2008 will be in the development of digitally compatible systems.

As digital print engines become faster and slicker, and boast even shorter set up times, the pressure for finishing manufacturers to introduce equipment that can seamlessly fit into a single pass production line is most certainly on. To this end, we can expect to see manufacturers in 2008 automating the finishing process through the introduction of more server motor driven machines, which are capable of delivering shorter run work and reducing the amount of operator intervention required when setting up and changing jobs. As a result, we will undoubtedly see more equipment that ever at drupa that is able to function automatically as part of an in line, pr at least near line, process whether it is high end paper processing equipment for roll fed production or a simple folding mechanism.

The increasing need for speed and efficiency, coupled with an increase in personalised print, also brings a need for utmost security throughout the document production process. This will mean that in the coming year, print finishers will be looking for systems that include barcode and optical reading devices on all types of systems, from perfect binders and booklet makers to inserters, to ensure complete data integrity and quality control.

Developing technology

Since its introduction, digital technology has arguably been responsible for bringing finishing into the 21st century, but it has also brought with it a number of production issues for the printer. The chemicals, heat and papers used in digital printing has brought a raft of problems to the table, which were not previously relevant to the offset printer. To help combat problems such as marking and cracking, manufacturers will hopefully work towards tackling the issues with ever more sophisticated feeding systems and pre-creasing/folding technology over the coming months.

The year ahead is also set to bring further developments for PUR binding systems, as suppliers such as CP Bourg and Horizon turn their attention away from EVA binding in order to improve the reliability of binding coated stock. Traditional EVA and ease of use do not perform well on the coated paper and silicone fuser’s oils in digital printing. Therefore the shift towards PUR compatible systems is set to make the perfect binding sector one of the fastest developing and most existing areas of finishing.

Promo - look out for our forthcoming offers on Wall Calendars, Desk Calendars, Xmas Cards, Promotional Wall Calendars and CD Calendars.

For more information on printing and graphic design please see some of our recent blog articles;

• Digital Presses
• Digital Printing
• Offset Printing
• Print Production Management
• How to create a marketing plan incorporating promotional newsletters
• All you need to know about Digital Printing
• The Future of Printing
• Print Finishing
• Variable Data Printing
• ISO 12647 and Colour Management in Printing
• Pre-press – In Flight, Pre-Flight and Post-Flight
• Print, Paper and Recycling
• Design of the times – (Article reproduced from Printing World February 2009)
• Pre-press – 20 years of change
• Transactional and Direct Mail
• 7 Guidelines For Good Newsletter Printing
• Graphic Design
• Printing – Where in the world are we?
• Improving Your Response Rates to Leaflets, Flyers and Brochures
• HINTS & TIPS…The sales letter
• The History of Printing
• 10 Tips for Creatives in a Digital World
• Eight Easy Ways to Improve Digital Print Sales to Creative and Design Agencies
• Transactional and Variable data printing
• PUR or EVA? That is the question
• What you need to know about…… Perfect Binding
• What’s the point of Recycling Paper and Board?

Print Buying Direct is a Trading Name of The Printing House Ltd. One of the UK’s leading quality printing companies for short run, long run and large format colour printing. Based in Crewe, Cheshire and delivering to customers across the UK and Ireland.

Digital Printing presses part 2 – 25th September 2009
Going wide format

The digital manufacturers are expanding their options and many now offer a whole portfolio of products from entry level, multi-function machines to light production, to heavy duty, robust digital production presses to wider format inkjet printers.

The wide format world of digital printing will also see a great deal of growth. This is market where many have seen that they can make a profit whilst not having to lay substantial investment. These machines are going into inplants and quick printers, nut increasingly into commercial print companies- either digital houses or conventional litho print firms- who make use of them for proofing purposes, but also as a value added offer for customers looking to produce wider format, very short run projects.

Also on the up, is the wide format market for signage and a number of new, faster and higher quality flatbed machines have recently been launched. These offer users the capability to print either roll fed or rigid substrate and can print on a vast array of media such as board, foam PVC, plastics, wood, and even glass. There plenty of statistics to back up growth in this area. For example, according to a recent forecast from Infotrends, ‘the total system revenue from wide format UV curable inkjet printing systems, which includes hardware, ink, media, and the value of service contracts will fro 26.6% annually to reach $2.58 billion by 2011. At these rates, UV curable inkjet represents the fastest growing technology in the wide format digital printing market’.

Web to print

The ability to work more efficiently, and faster, will lead many companies to look at the option of web to print. Coupled with a digital print engine, this solution can add a lot of value for companies and their customers. Harnessing the power of the Internet to drive business to your pre press is increasingly attractive to many. This allows companies to source new customers, who would normally be out of their reach, to be more productive, to cut costs, and to enhance customer satisfaction.

A web to print solution will work for you 24 hours a day, seven days a week, without costing a fortune. It will give your company a continuous virtual presence and allow customers to order, proof, and send comments online, even when there is no one in the office.

This is an opportunity that every digital print company should seriously contemplate in 2009, and those who are looking to make an investment in digital print technology, should set aside some money to enable a web to print solution from the outset.

Promo - look out for our forthcoming offers on Wall Calendars, Desk Calendars, Xmas Cards, Promotional Wall Calendars and CD Calendars.

For more information on printing and graphic design please see some of our recent blog articles;

• Digital Presses
• Digital Printing
• Offset Printing
• Print Production Management
• How to create a marketing plan incorporating promotional newsletters
• All you need to know about Digital Printing
• The Future of Printing
• Print Finishing
• Variable Data Printing
• ISO 12647 and Colour Management in Printing
• Pre-press – In Flight, Pre-Flight and Post-Flight
• Print, Paper and Recycling
• Design of the times – (Article reproduced from Printing World February 2009)
• Pre-press – 20 years of change
• Transactional and Direct Mail
• 7 Guidelines For Good Newsletter Printing
• Graphic Design
• Printing – Where in the world are we?
• Improving Your Response Rates to Leaflets, Flyers and Brochures
• HINTS & TIPS…The sales letter
• The History of Printing
• 10 Tips for Creatives in a Digital World
• Eight Easy Ways to Improve Digital Print Sales to Creative and Design Agencies
• Transactional and Variable data printing
• PUR or EVA? That is the question
• What you need to know about…… Perfect Binding
• What’s the point of Recycling Paper and Board?

Print Buying Direct is a Trading Name of The Printing House Ltd. One of the UK’s leading quality printing companies for short run, long run and large format colour printing. Based in Crewe, Cheshire and delivering to customers across the UK and Ireland.

Digital Printing presses – part 1 – 24th September 2009

The mighty march of digital is set to continue in 2008. With some dubbing this year’s drupa as the ‘inkjet drupa’ or even the ‘digital drupa’ it will be interesting to see the many new products that manufacturers are bringing to market. The enhancements to print quality over the last few years on most of these machines has meant that to the layman, the quality of the output is almost indistinguishable from that of offset no longer merely fit for purpose, these machines are able to produce extremely high quality and premium jobs.
So, if that is taken for granted, what is there to look forward to this year? Well, running speeds are still of some concern and we will see a number of manufacturers bringing to market both colour and black and white devices that run faster than ever. For example, Xerox has recently launched its fastest black and white continuous feed system in the 650/1300, which can print up to 1232 duplex A4 images per minute.
Another trend will be for machines to be more flexible. This will mean that they are able to handle a broader selection of media and substrates making them suitable for a wider range of markets. There are some exciting new opportunities that will open for digital print companies as they move to new sectors and increase revenue streams from outside the comfort zone of general commercial print. This can mean anything from entering the short run packaging market, to prototyping, to books on-demand to fine art, to highly sophisticated one-offs including variable data, to bespoke projects.

The transpromo market (where a marketing message is included on the ‘white space’ of transactional documents) will also allow printers to make use of their digital equipment, and the variable data features to the full.

Light production machines will also be important as more and more print companies look to make their first move into digital without the investment costs of a full production machine.

Kodak NexPress, for instance, is now available in a smaller, more compact version – the M700- to give those looking to start out in digital a further option.

Promo - look out for our forthcoming offers on Wall Calendars, Desk Calendars, Xmas Cards, Promotional Wall Calendars and CD Calendars.

For more information on printing and graphic design please see some of our recent blog articles;

• Digital Printing
• Offset Printing
• Print Production Management
• How to create a marketing plan incorporating promotional newsletters
• All you need to know about Digital Printing
• The Future of Printing
• Print Finishing
• Variable Data Printing
• ISO 12647 and Colour Management in Printing
• Pre-press – In Flight, Pre-Flight and Post-Flight
• Print, Paper and Recycling
• Design of the times – (Article reproduced from Printing World February 2009)
• Pre-press – 20 years of change
• Transactional and Direct Mail
• 7 Guidelines For Good Newsletter Printing
• Graphic Design
• Printing – Where in the world are we?
• Improving Your Response Rates to Leaflets, Flyers and Brochures
• HINTS & TIPS…The sales letter
• The History of Printing
• 10 Tips for Creatives in a Digital World
• Eight Easy Ways to Improve Digital Print Sales to Creative and Design Agencies
• Transactional and Variable data printing
• PUR or EVA? That is the question
• What you need to know about…… Perfect Binding
• What’s the point of Recycling Paper and Board?

Digital pre-press part 1 – 22nd September 2009

This is the year of the hybrid workflow and digital printers are increasingly looking to add capacity with conventional offset and direct imaging presses. In order to get the most out of their new press investments, digital printers are looking at workflow systems to drive both static and variable data output.
Setting up a system to drive two different workflows isn’t desperately challenging or expensive. And, there are plenty of system developers who can tell digital printers where and how they can spend their hard earned money to do it. But that isn’t the hard part. The hard part is setting up a system so that the same job printed using two different production workflows, looks absolutely identical from press to press.
And it gets worse, because a print application might include some material with variable data and some without it, even though the majority of the job is the same. If the run is only a few thousand it is obvious that such a job can easily be printed using variable data software to manage the data flow and print the job on a digital press. If the job is tens of thousands thought, there needs to be tight colour management and control across both workflows.

Colour conscious

Quality control across devices isn’t just a concern for digital printers setting up hybrid workflows. It is also an issue for printers wanting to get equivalent colour quality across their fleet of digital presses. Fortunately suppliers have recognised that device profiling isn’t just a matter of creating a generic profile for their specific press technologies. We can then expect to see far greater improvements in colour quality this year as digital printers start to really get to grips with colour management, exploiting the device profiling tools that manufacturers such as Xerox with iGen3 press, are making available and to be shown at drupa this coming may. Being able to accurately profile an output device will help digital printers to improve their overall quality control, not just for individual short run work. It will also help them to maintain colour consistency throughout longer runs, and to ensure that subsequent reprints are colour accurate. To support hybrid workflows and to help ensure colour output quality, developers such as EFI, Creo PODS and Fujifilm are introducing new workflow technologies capable of driving multiple devices and workflows. The idea is to have a front end system with the capacity to support any quality demands and to be able to run high speed digital presses at rated speed. The scope of technology options for such front end systems will be even greater in 2008 as developers increase the options and tools they include with their systems. New soft proofing options from FFEI with Realvue and Dalim with its Virtual Library technology will allow digital printers to extend their workflows across media. Both of these tools, developed originally for job phototype and remote production proofing, are ideal for presenting media online as part of a publication or job ordering system.

To be continued…

Order your Christmas Card Printing early – click here for prices and more information about your Corporate Christmas cards

Jump Start with a Marketing Plan – Part 8 – 7th August 2009
July is a slow month for many types of business. But not for a dealer of swimming pool supplies. January would most likely be the month their newsletter would be ignored – while people might like to dream about warmers days they’re unlikely to want to stock up on chlorine.

Your top months for sales may depend on:

• Holidays
• The academic year
• The seasonality of your specific industry
• Your company’s sales cycle

Frequency: How Often Should You Mail?

Most newsletters are mailed monthly, every other month or quarterly. E-mail newsletter is broadcast daily, weekly, and monthly or as news breaks.

The ideal frequency is at least monthly. Daily newsletters, for example, run the risk of being ignored because they arrive too frequently. However, as a creative marketer, you have alternatives to traditional monthly or quarterly frequencies. Let your marketing goals drive your publication dates.

See you publish a quarterly newsletter and send it to manufacturers involved in the automotive industry. If you distribute your newsletter in January, April, July and October, One of your newsletters will basically be ignored. Why? The auto industry re-tools its factories for the next year’s models in July. Nothing is happening that will help your sales.

If your business has strong buying cycles like this, consider an “irregular” schedule for your newsletter. Every industry has its own sales cycles and periods of strong sales activity. A newsletter mailed frequently during these times will boost sales. During a business’ slower months, a newsletter will be fighting the sales cycle and may even be completely ignored.

Traditionally, most publishers try to avoid vacation seasons. December is a bad time to mail a newsletter. January is strong. The last few weeks of August are slow, as many families take vacations (or move) during this time.

A quick note of caution: You must know your sales cycle in depth. Often, buyers make purchasing decisions well in advance of when the purchase is actually made. For example, January may be your top sales month, but September and October are the months when budgets are submitted and purchases approved. In this instance, you’d be better off increasing the frequency in the fall than in the winter.

When to Use Special Editions

Many publishers who want stay on their regular schedule of quarterly or bi-monthly publish special editions during busy times in their sales cycle. Special editions work well to announce a new product or service, attract attention, react quickly to a controversy, or provide a handout for a trade show or special event.

Keep the design of the special edition the same as that of the regular newsletter. But add a word signalling immediacy to the nameplate design, such as “briefing,” “special edition”, “alert”, or “update”.

Editorial Calendar Coordinates Other Promotions

Combine your newsletter with your yearly marketing plan by creating an editorial calendar for the newsletter. Depending on how quickly your industry or organisation changes, it can be difficult to plan for everything. However, many events are announced well in advance. Examples include seminars, annual conventions, elections, annual fund-raising events, special issues of trade magazines and new product launches.

As you go through the year, update the calendar to include new products and advertising campaigns. To reinforce an advertisement or direct mailing, you may even want to insert the same promotional literature into your newsletter.

A newsletter should be just one of your marketing tools. If you coordinate it with your other marketing strategies, your marketing efforts will be more effective and less expensive, because they will reinforce each other.

Up to this point, you’ve seen all of the ways newsletters can be used to promote. You know whether or not you should publish a newsletter. The next step is to determine if you can publish a promotional newsletter on your own or whether you’ll need to find outside help.

to be continued…

The Printing House Website Great new user friendly design – We’ve been working hard over recent months to try create a new look and new content for our main brochure site – The Printing House Website – based in Crewe, Cheshire, one of the UK’s leading colour printers. When you find some time, please take a look and feed back to us. Some of the new content includes A Guide to Preparing Print Ready Artwork and information about our Large Format and banner printing service.

We’re a bit sad and are so excited by our new site that we’ve now rebranded Print Buying Direct, Golf Club Centenary Books and School Prospectus Made Easy – let us have some feedback, hopefully you agree they look much cleaner now.

Keep watching all our sites as we are continually adding new content.

To be continued…

See part one of this blog on digital printing here. Also – what does the future hold for printing – part 1

All about the new Printing House Website

Order your Appointment Cards online at Print Buying Direct – prices from £13.50 for 100 cards printed in full colour. At print buying direct we are market leaders in the printing of appointment cards and can produce them for doctors, hairdressers, dentists, physio, beauty salons, nail technicians, garages, massage therapists – for anything really. Just visit our Appointment Cards web page for more information.

Our business cards are some of the best in the business – printed in full colour on our £200,000 state of the art digital press – you’ll be proud to hand out business cards that we produce for you. Our business card prices are also very cost effective – 100 full colour business cards for only £10!

Don’t forget we’re still running our Letterheads promotion – 2000 full colour letterheads (headed paper) for £125 delivered! We’ve been producing letterheads since 1991 for hundreds of customs as diverse as Bentley and Royal Mail.

See Part 12 of this blog on Print finishing, See also our Blog on Spot UV Varnishing

Print Buying Direct and School Prospectus Made Easy are both brands of parent company – The Printing House Ltd of Crewe, Cheshire, UK. Keep visiting both websites for details of our latest offers and promotions. For more information School Prospectus including School Prospectus Design or School Prospectus Printing (we also specialise in college prospectus) see our www.schoolprospectus.info website

Have a look at our Newsletters webpage for help and assistance with writing and designing your newsletter. It deals with, company newsletters, college newsletters, school newsletters and employee newsletters in particluar. Our blog often focuses on newsletters and we have a page which specifically helps with newsletters as a marketing tool.

TOP TIP: Add that feel of quality to your company brochure by first applying Matt Lamination then a Spot UV Varnish. The UV Varnishing actually ‘lifts’ your pictures to give them a glossy impact.

Our Digital Brochures (turn page technology) are really taking off now – get your brochure put online from only £15 per page.

One of the mainstays at Print Buying Direct is Leaflets. We are experts at Leaflet Design or Leaflet Printing Check out our Banner Stands (pop up banners) only £99. Design service available.

See our partner site Massage Nantwich – for Remedial & Sports Massage – in the South Cheshire area.

Everything you need to know about Digital Printing – part 17 – Final Part to this Blog – 28th July 2009

At drupa 2000 manroland introduced the only DI web offset press to date, called the Dicoweb. This used seamless stainless steel plates that fitted onto sleeve cylinders that could be interchanged with different diameter sets to vey the print cut off length. Plates were imaged on the press by a thermal laser transfer system and could be re-imaged after use by scrubbing them clean and starting again.
Dicoweb was a vey advanced concept but not a commercial success, with only a handful ever installed in commercial print sites in Germany and Switzerland, all officially as test machines. It didn’t appear at drupa 2004 and by 2008 the project appeared to be at the end.

The future
Looking ahead over the next two decades, it is an easy prediction that digital printing will continue to advance in all sectors. What is not so clear is how soon and how much it will start to replace today’s dominant conventional processes.
This issue is not so much the imaging technology, although the trade off between speed, quality and consumables costs (particularly digital ink and toners) are particularly important when comparing costs and capabilities with conventional print. Inkjet is advancing rapidly and may well become the dominant digital technology, although toner systems are also still rapidly increasing in speed and quality so there many always are an important process too.
Far more important tan the specific technologies will be the awareness and acceptance of the advantages of digital by print buyers and specifiers such as designers, advertising agencies and publishers. The message needs to be driven home by print service providers that personalised variable data print means less waste and greater response; that digital labels and packages can help bring products to market faster while coping with ever changing labelling regulations; and that on-demand books mean that long runs and expensive warehousing isn’t needed.
The environmental issues are important too: digital printing doesn’t need film or plates or associated chemistry, while the short run, just in time aspects of the process mean less wasted paper and lower requirements for transport and heated storage.
As one digital print manufacturing executive said, ‘We can predict where digital will be in 20 years time. What we can’t say is where it will be in 20 months time!’.
New Look Website for The Printing House Website – 15th July 2009

We’ve been working hard over recent months to try create a new look and new content for our flagship brand The Printing House Website – bsed in Crewe, Cheshire, one of the UK’s leading colour printers. When you find some time, please take a look and feed back to us. Some of the new content includes A Guide to Preparing Print Ready Artwork and information about our Large Format and banner printing service.

We’re a bit sad and are so excited by our new site that we’ve now rebranded Print Buying Direct, Golf Club Centenary Books and School Prospectus Made Easy – let us have some feedback, hopefully you agree they look much cleaner now.

Keep watching all our sites as we are continually adding new content.

To be continued…

See part one of this blog on digital printing here. Also – what does the future hold for printing – part 1

All about the new Printing House Website

Order your Appointment Cards online at Print Buying Direct – prices from £13.50 for 100 cards printed in full colour. At print buying direct we are market leaders in the printing of appointment cards and can produce them for doctors, hairdressers, dentists, physio, beauty salons, nail technicians, garages, massage therapists – for anything really. Just visit our Appointment Cards web page for more information.

Our business cards are some of the best in the business – printed in full colour on our £200,000 state of the art digital press – you’ll be proud to hand out business cards that we produce for you. Our business card prices are also very cost effective – 100 full colour business cards for only £10!

Don’t forget we’re still running our Letterheads promotion – 2000 full colour letterheads (headed paper) for £125 delivered! We’ve been producing letterheads since 1991 for hundreds of customs as diverse as Bentley and Royal Mail.

See Part 12 of this blog on Print finishing, See also our Blog on Spot UV Varnishing

Print Buying Direct and School Prospectus Made Easy are both brands of parent company – The Printing House Ltd of Crewe, Cheshire, UK. Keep visiting both websites for details of our latest offers and promotions. For more information School Prospectus including School Prospectus Design or School Prospectus Printing (we also specialise in college prospectus) see our www.schoolprospectus.info website

Have a look at our Newsletters webpage for help and assistance with writing and designing your newsletter. It deals with, company newsletters, college newsletters, school newsletters and employee newsletters in particluar. Our blog often focuses on newsletters and we have a page which specifically helps with newsletters as a marketing tool.

TOP TIP: Add that feel of quality to your company brochure by first applying Matt Lamination then a Spot UV Varnish. The UV Varnishing actually ‘lifts’ your pictures to give them a glossy impact.

Our Digital Brochures (turn page technology) are really taking off now – get your brochure put online from only £15 per page.

One of the mainstays at Print Buying Direct is Leaflets. We are experts at Leaflet Design or Leaflet Printing Check out our Banner Stands (pop up banners) only £99. Design service available.

Everything you need to know about Digital Printing – part 16
DI litho presses
It is an open question whether DI presses count as truly digital. DI means direct imaging (not digital imaging) and the presses are essentially standard offset litho machines with built in plate setters. As such they can take digital imaging and fit in an all digital workflow, but the use of litho plates means that variable data isn’t possible. They work well for short run printing with the advantage that you get true offset quality on standard papers, and the press speeds are significantly faster than ‘true’ digital printers.
Heidelberg announced the very first DI press at the end of 2001. This was a modified GTO B3 format press with the first generation Presstek spark erosion plates, called the GTO-DI. Only a few of these shipped before the Ipex of 2003 where a refined model was announced with Presstek’s definitive Pearl technology, which used thermal ablation imaging. Two years later at drupa 1995, Heidelberg announced what was to become the best selling DI press to date, the A3+ Quickmaster 46-4. This was compact, easy to use and built to the company’s usual high engineering standards. During the 1990s, offset press manufacturers showed a lot of interest in DI presses, to the point that at drupa of 2000 virtually all significant names were shipping DI, showing a working prototype, or claiming they had something back home in the labs. Most were based on Presstek or Scitex imaging units. However, very few of these prototypes ever made it into production. The rapid advance in speed and flexibility of off press platesetters wiped out most of the advantage of an on press system.
As with the majority of DI presses, the GTO-DI and Quickmaster 46-4 DI adopted waterless offset printing. This was primarily because the plate imaging units were pretty bulky and the only easy way to fit them to a press was where the dampening rollers would normally go.
Quickmaster 46-4 DI was in production for almost a decade, with several updates to keep to competitive. Heidelberg eventually stopped making it at the end of 2005 with about 3500 sold has not replaced it with any DI model.
For a few years Heidelberg made a larger DI press based on a modified Speedmaster 74 B2 press, with conventional units and wet offset. It was very expensive and only sold in modest numbers for a few years.
KBA, Germany’s third major press maker, now makes the only B2 DI press, the 74 karat.
Of all new machines talked about at drupa 2000, only the Presstek-Ryobi joint venture SRA3 portrait format press actually shipped. This proved successful over the years and is still sold worldwide as the Presstek 34DI and the Ryobi 3404DI. At Ipex 2006, Presstek launched a new generation DI press the B3 landscape format 52DI.
Screen has also made DI presses for ten years, and its current model is the Sra3 format TruePress 344, launched in 2004. This is notable for using wet offset.

New Look Website for The Printing House Website – 15th July 2009

We’ve been working hard over recent months to try create a new look and new content for our flagship brand The Printing House Website. When you find some time, please take a look and feed back to us. Some of the new content includes A Guide to Preparing Print Ready Artwork and information about our Large Format and banner printing service.

We’re a bit sad and are so excited by our new site that we’re now rebranding Print Buying Direct, Golf Club Centenary Books and School Prospectus Made Easy – so keep an eye out – we’ll email when its available on line.

Keep watching all our sites as we are continually adding new content.

To be continued…

See part one of this blog on digital printing here. Also – what does the future hold for printing – part 1

All about the new Printing House Website

Order your Appointment Cards online at Print Buying Direct – prices from £13.50 for 100 cards printed in full colour. At print buying direct we are market leaders in the printing of appointment cards and can produce them for doctors, hairdressers, dentists, physio, beauty salons, nail technicians, garages, massage therapists – for anything really. Just visit our Appointment Cards web page for more information.

Our business cards are some of the best in the business – printed in full colour on our £200,000 state of the art digital press – you’ll be proud to hand out business cards that we produce for you. Our business card prices are also very cost effective – 100 full colour business cards for only £10!

Don’t forget we’re still running our Letterheads promotion – 2000 full colour letterheads (headed paper) for £125 delivered! We’ve been producing letterheads since 1991 for hundreds of customs as diverse as Bentley and Royal Mail.

See Part 12 of this blog on Print finishing, See also our Blog on Spot UV Varnishing

Print Buying Direct and School Prospectus Made Easy are both brands of parent company – The Printing House Ltd of Crewe, Cheshire, UK. Keep visiting both websites for details of our latest offers and promotions. For more information School Prospectus including School Prospectus Design or School Prospectus Printing (we also specialise in college prospectus) see our www.schoolprospectus.info website

Have a look at our Newsletters webpage for help and assistance with writing and designing your newsletter. It deals with, company newsletters, college newsletters, school newsletters and employee newsletters in particluar. Our blog often focuses on newsletters and we have a page which specifically helps with newsletters as a marketing tool.

TOP TIP: Add that feel of quality to your company brochure by first applying Matt Lamination then a Spot UV Varnish. The UV Varnishing actually ‘lifts’ your pictures to give them a glossy impact.

Our Digital Brochures (turn page technology) are really taking off now – get your brochure put online from only £15 per page.

One of the mainstays at Print Buying Direct is Leaflets. We are experts at Leaflet Design or Leaflet Printing Check out our Banner Stands (pop up banners) only £99. Design service available.

Everything you need to know about Digital Printing – part 15
Monochrome digital
While digital colour production print really is only a couple of decades old, monochrome production models stretch to the late 1970s, with the introduction of Xerox’s ground breaking 9700 laser printer. This offered 120 A4 sheets per minute, which is quite respectable even today, although its 300 dpi and simplex only operations have long been outclassed. The 1980s saw monochrome laser printers rapidly progress from massive and hugely expensive specialised devices suited to air conditioned data centres, to affordable ‘desktop’ models suited to individuals or small workgroups. The A4 canon LBP-SX was a ground breaking desktop model that became better known as the basis of the widely used HP Laserjet II and, more significantly for the print and design sector, as the Apple LaserWriter, the first printer to use a PostScript RIP.
At the other end of production scale, high speed reel fed toner printers were being developed for transaction printing. Delphax, Nipson and IBM have been particular players in this market, joined recently by Xerox, which introduced a high speed reel fed engine, followed by a colour version, in 2007. These are among the fastest digital printers on the market. Thought the new breed of fast inkjets can match them.
Fast monochrome digital printers were soon adopted by book printers by short run titles, initially for scientific and academic textbooks. The short run or even single copy on-demand aspect is now being taken up for more and more general paperback books, where they can be used to keep slow selling older titles in print or bring out of print titles back with no need for long runs and expensive warehousing. They are also leading to something of a boom in self-publishing, where authors can use online services such as Luli.com to bypass traditional publishing companies and sell their own titles directly through a website linked to an on-demand print service.
Developers are also now using the latest high speed technologies to produce sheetfed monochrome machines with higher speeds than colour equivalents, and with improving halftone quality previously a weak point.
At drupa 08, Xerox introduced its fastest sheetfed Nuvera so far, the 288, with a top speed of 288 pages per minute. This has two 144 page per minute engines in line for single pass duplex printing. In 2009, Kodak will claim the crown for the fastest monochrome cut sheet printer, with the 300 pager per minute. Digimaster EX300 again made from tow 150 pager per minute engines in line.
Oce currently has the fastest monochrome single engine machine, the VarioPrint 6250 model, for 250 A4 pages per minute and a monthly duty cycle up to eight million per month. This uses twin print units arranged either side of the sheet. Konica Minolta’s bizhub pro 2500p is based on this engine too.

New Look Website for The Printing House Website – 15th July 2009

We’ve been working hard over recent months to try create a new look and new content for our flagship brand The Printing House Website. When you find some time, please take a look and feed back to us. Some of the new content includes A Guide to Preparing Print Ready Artwork and information about our Large Format and banner printing service.

We’re a bit sad and are so excited by our new site that we’re now rebranding Print Buying Direct, Golf Club Centenary Books and School Prospectus Made Easy – so keep an eye out – we’ll email when its available on line.

Keep watching all our sites as we are continually adding new content.

To be continued…

See part one of this blog on digital printing here. Also – what does the future hold for printing – part 1

All about the new Printing House Website

Order your Appointment Cards online at Print Buying Direct – prices from £13.50 for 100 cards printed in full colour. At print buying direct we are market leaders in the printing of appointment cards and can produce them for doctors, hairdressers, dentists, physio, beauty salons, nail technicians, garages, massage therapists – for anything really. Just visit our Appointment Cards web page for more information.

Our business cards are some of the best in the business – printed in full colour on our £200,000 state of the art digital press – you’ll be proud to hand out business cards that we produce for you. Our business card prices are also very cost effective – 100 full colour business cards for only £10!

Don’t forget we’re still running our Letterheads promotion – 2000 full colour letterheads (headed paper) for £125 delivered! We’ve been producing letterheads since 1991 for hundreds of customs as diverse as Bentley and Royal Mail.

See Part 12 of this blog on Print finishing, See also our Blog on Spot UV Varnishing

Print Buying Direct and School Prospectus Made Easy are both brands of parent company – The Printing House Ltd of Crewe, Cheshire, UK. Keep visiting both websites for details of our latest offers and promotions. For more information School Prospectus including School Prospectus Design or School Prospectus Printing (we also specialise in college prospectus) see our www.schoolprospectus.info website

Have a look at our Newsletters webpage for help and assistance with writing and designing your newsletter. It deals with, company newsletters, college newsletters, school newsletters and employee newsletters in particluar. Our blog often focuses on newsletters and we have a page which specifically helps with newsletters as a marketing tool.

TOP TIP: Add that feel of quality to your company brochure by first applying Matt Lamination then a Spot UV Varnish. The UV Varnishing actually ‘lifts’ your pictures to give them a glossy impact.

Our Digital Brochures (turn page technology) are really taking off now – get your brochure put online from only £15 per page.

One of the mainstays at Print Buying Direct is Leaflets. We are experts at Leaflet Design or Leaflet Printing Check out our Banner Stands (pop up banners) only £99. Design service available.

Everything you need to know about Digital Printing – continued…

This company was bought a couple of years ago by HP and is now the HP Scitex operation. NUR maintained its independence until late in 2007, when it was also bought by HP. Another HP acquisition in 2007 was ColorSpan, maker of small to medium sized flatbed UV inkjets. The company also has a relationship with Seiko to sell the latter’s relatively low priced solvent inkjets as the Designjet 8000, 9000 and 10000.
Other companies entered the market successfully with versatile and relatively low cost solvent printers. Mimaki, Mutoh and Roland Digital Graphics are all Japanese companies that bought print heads from Epson and built them into wide ranges of solvent machines.
With the increasing pressure to cut down on ‘aggressive’ solvents based on VOCs (volatile organic compounds), these three companies in particular have pioneered the development of low solvent inks (often called eco solvents) that use less hazardous ingredients. These have a shorter outdoor life than aggressive solvents, but they are improving. Another benefit is that the print room and the print smells better too!
The needs of signage and large display print also prompted the introduction of a third major wide format technology. By using UV curable inks and strengthened feed and support tables, flatbed inkjets can also print directly onto most rigid materials. These can be anything from large sheets of foam board for exhibition panels, though aluminium Dibond panels for exterior building panels (such as building site hoardings), plus more unusual materials such as wooden doors or glass sheets.
UV flatbeds were pioneered by the UK’s Inca Digital, which got its first Eagle 44 machines to market in 2001, followed closely by Durst with its Rho series. Now there is a wide choice of machines from many companies, at all sorts of speeds and price points some with the ability to print a dense opaque white ink for backlit transparencies and dark materials. Flatbeds are generally used by the sort of companies that were previously analogue screen printers, though they are not yet a complete replacement for screen as the digital ink costs more and cannot yet handle special colours such as metallics.

New Look Website for The Printing House Website – 15th July 2009

We’ve been working hard over recent months to try create a new look and new content for our flagship brand The Printing House Website. When you find some time, please take a look and feed back to us. Some of the new content includes A Guide to Preparing Print Ready Artwork and information about our Large Format and banner printing service.

We’re a bit sad and are so excited by our new site that we’re now rebranding Print Buying Direct, Golf Club Centenary Books and School Prospectus Made Easy – so keep an eye out – we’ll email when its available on line.

Keep watching all our sites as we are continually adding new content.

To be continued…

See part one of this blog on digital printing here. Also – what does the future hold for printing – part 1

All about the new Printing House Website

Order your Appointment Cards online at Print Buying Direct – prices from £13.50 for 100 cards printed in full colour. At print buying direct we are market leaders in the printing of appointment cards and can produce them for doctors, hairdressers, dentists, physio, beauty salons, nail technicians, garages, massage therapists – for anything really. Just visit our Appointment Cards web page for more information.

Our business cards are some of the best in the business – printed in full colour on our £200,000 state of the art digital press – you’ll be proud to hand out business cards that we produce for you. Our business card prices are also very cost effective – 100 full colour business cards for only £10!

Don’t forget we’re still running our Letterheads promotion – 2000 full colour letterheads (headed paper) for £125 delivered! We’ve been producing letterheads since 1991 for hundreds of customs as diverse as Bentley and Royal Mail.

See Part 12 of this blog on Print finishing, See also our Blog on Spot UV Varnishing

Print Buying Direct and School Prospectus Made Easy are both brands of parent company – The Printing House Ltd of Crewe, Cheshire, UK. Keep visiting both websites for details of our latest offers and promotions. For more information School Prospectus including School Prospectus Design or School Prospectus Printing (we also specialise in college prospectus) see our www.schoolprospectus.info website

Have a look at our Newsletters webpage for help and assistance with writing and designing your newsletter. It deals with, company newsletters, college newsletters, school newsletters and employee newsletters in particluar. Our blog often focuses on newsletters and we have a page which specifically helps with newsletters as a marketing tool.

TOP TIP: Add that feel of quality to your company brochure by first applying Matt Lamination then a Spot UV Varnish. The UV Varnishing actually ‘lifts’ your pictures to give them a glossy impact.

Our Digital Brochures (turn page technology) are really taking off now – get your brochure put online from only £15 per page.

One of the mainstays at Print Buying Direct is Leaflets. We are experts at Leaflet Design or Leaflet Printing Check out our Banner Stands (pop up banners) only £99. Design service available.

Everything you need to know about Digital Printing – part 13 – 21st July 2009
Wide format inkjets
The development of the wide format printer into a significant market presence has happened almost entirely within the past 20 years. Before that in the 1980s there were a handful of very low resolution spray systems developed mainly for metro station billboards and similar. More widely used were liquid toner electrostatic printers that could produce higher quality billboards and signs.
Iris Graphics produced the fist photographic quality wide format inkjet in 1988 – the 3047. This used continuous flow print heads over a spinning drunk that held sheets of paper. The quality was good enough for Iris machines to be used as the basis of the first digital fine art printers, whose results are given the somewhat pretentious name of giclee.
Scitex took over Iris and developed its technology into a successful range of digital proofing systems. DuPont used a broadly similar technology from Stork Graphics to produce the Cromlin Digital proofer. Both sold very well until around 2000 when sales overtaken by the very much cheaper drop on-demand printers from the likes of Canon, Epson and HP.
For many commercial printers their introduction to inkjet would have been through such a proofer, which could also be used for low volume, high quality ‘print for pay’ work such as posters and point of sale signs. However, these use aqueous (water based) inks that are not suitable for use outdoors.
The early 1990s onward saw the adaption of inkjets built specially for outdoor sign work, with solvent based inks that etch into plastics and are weather and sun resistant for many years.
Some of these are very large printers indeed, offering print widths between three and five metres (usually called ‘grand format’). Aqueous inkjets are rarely wider than 1.6 metres. The first signage machines were developed by relatively small companies such as Signtech and Michelangelo. NUR originally worked with Scitex on early signage machines, but Scitex soon brought the technology in-house by purchasing Idanit, another Israeli company, to form Scitex Vision.

New Look Website for The Printing House Website – 15th July 2009

We’ve been working hard over recent months to try create a new look and new content for our flagship brand The Printing House Website. When you find some time, please take a look and feed back to us. Some of the new content includes A Guide to Preparing Print Ready Artwork and information about our Large Format and banner printing service.

We’re a bit sad and are so excited by our new site that we’re now rebranding Print Buying Direct, Golf Club Centenary Books and School Prospectus Made Easy – so keep an eye out – we’ll email when its available on line.

Keep watching all our sites as we are continually adding new content.

To be continued…

See part one of this blog on digital printing here. Also – what does the future hold for printing – part 1

All about the new Printing House Website

Order your Appointment Cards online at Print Buying Direct – prices from £13.50 for 100 cards printed in full colour. At print buying direct we are market leaders in the printing of appointment cards and can produce them for doctors, hairdressers, dentists, physio, beauty salons, nail technicians, garages, massage therapists – for anything really. Just visit our Appointment Cards web page for more information.

Our business cards are some of the best in the business – printed in full colour on our £200,000 state of the art digital press – you’ll be proud to hand out business cards that we produce for you. Our business card prices are also very cost effective – 100 full colour business cards for only £10!

Don’t forget we’re still running our Letterheads promotion – 2000 full colour letterheads (headed paper) for £125 delivered! We’ve been producing letterheads since 1991 for hundreds of customs as diverse as Bentley and Royal Mail.

See Part 12 of this blog on Print finishing, See also our Blog on Spot UV Varnishing

Print Buying Direct and School Prospectus Made Easy are both brands of parent company – The Printing House Ltd of Crewe, Cheshire, UK. Keep visiting both websites for details of our latest offers and promotions. For more information School Prospectus including School Prospectus Design or School Prospectus Printing (we also specialise in college prospectus) see our www.schoolprospectus.info website

Have a look at our Newsletters webpage for help and assistance with writing and designing your newsletter. It deals with, company newsletters, college newsletters, school newsletters and employee newsletters in particluar. Our blog often focuses on newsletters and we have a page which specifically helps with newsletters as a marketing tool.

TOP TIP: Add that feel of quality to your company brochure by first applying Matt Lamination then a Spot UV Varnish. The UV Varnishing actually ‘lifts’ your pictures to give them a glossy impact.

Our Digital Brochures (turn page technology) are really taking off now – get your brochure put online from only £15 per page.

One of the mainstays at Print Buying Direct is Leaflets. We are experts at Leaflet Design or Leaflet Printing Check out our Banner Stands (pop up banners) only £99. Design service available.