Digital Printing-Toner - Cut Sheet (Color)

Choosing The Right Printer
July 1, 2004

Finding the high-speed/high-volume printer that provides the maximum productivity and cost savings for your in-plant is not easy. Here's some help. By Michael Fego There are many printer/copier manufacturers, but relatively few offer high-speed/high-volume models. Since "high-speed" and "high-volume" can be somewhat relative terms, let's first define what constitutes a high-speed printer. Most experts consider devices with print/copy speeds of 70 pages per minute (ppm) or more to be high-speed devices. For the purpose of this article, we will use this definition. Manufacturers offering products with speeds between 70 and 90 ppm include Konica Minolta, Kyocera Mita, Sharp, Xerox, Canon, Ricoh and

A Black-and-white Issue
July 1, 2004

The demand for black-and-white printing continues in an increasingly colorful world. By Gretchen Peck Digital color printing has been stealing the spotlight from black-and-white in recent years. But the black-and-white technology developers have had no fear; they realize it's still, very much, a black-and-white world out there. According to Paul Preo, business line manager of distributed printers for IBM Printing Systems, recent data indicates that as much as 75 percent of the work managed by in-plants is of the black-and-white kind. "Monochrome is still a lot less expensive and now offers excellent quality," he notes. "Today's digital monochrome technology boasts the strongest image

Multifunctional War
June 1, 2004

Multifunctional printers have many advantages over stand-alone units. But how can you properly evaluate them? Find out from an expert. By Jeffrey A. Smith Make no mistake: The digital equipment output marketplace is in an all-out war. Printer and copier manufacturers are fighting over clicks, plain and simple. The spoils are the profit from an ever-increasing volume of printed output. Disinformation comes from all fronts, causing confusion among the masses of business consumers. At the heart of the battlefield are the multifunctional units. My company, Pro Buyers LLC, defines a "multifunctional" unit as a digital imaging device that can perform more than one of

Variable Data (Part 2) The Revolution
May 1, 2004

In part two of our variable data printing coverage, Vic Barkin explains how your in-plant can move into this lucrative business. By Vic Nathan Barkin During the American Revolution, every rifle was what today we would refer to as a customized model. A master craftsman produced each lock, stock and barrel individually. No two were exactly alike. Finding the optimum load for each rifle meant that a rifleman had to test the accuracy of different powder volumes, patch thicknesses and ball size combinations to ensure, when the time came to hit his mark, he could trust his tool to do the job. Marketing

HP Adds To Its Portfolio
April 1, 2004

HP chose a sunny, seaside hamlet in Spain to show off its latest printers, a range of products that essentially completes its graphic arts portfolio. By Bob Neubauer As the sun rose over the nearby Mediterranean Sea, graphic arts journalists from all over the world gathered recently in a hotel auditorium in the coastal village of Sitges, Spain, to hear about Hewlett-Packard's latest technology innovations. With new digital offerings ranging from wide-format printers to high-volume, commercial-quality color presses (including the first commercial press co-developed by HP and Indigo), HP now says it has the industry's most complete graphic arts portfolio. HP couldn't have

Vendors Listening At Last?
April 1, 2004

Here is one in-plant production manager's take on recent technology introductions and how they address trends in the in-plant market. By Heath Cajandig In this industry, vendors are continuously trying to gear up the hype machine to tout a new vision for the future. Over time, it is hard not to be skeptical of any claim. Every now and then, though, a product actually does come along that perfectly sums up the current and future state of the industry. This past January, one of these products arrived: The Xerox DocuTech 100 series copier/printer. For Xerox it helps solidify a digital future for the company; for

Variable Data (Part 1) Aim Small, Miss Small
April 1, 2004

Variable Data Printing has become a buzz word. But how do you sell it to customers? What does it take to provide VDP? And how can your department profit from it? By Vic Nathan Barkin When taking aim with a rifle, the smaller the target you aim for, the more likely you are to hit that target. The very same concept can be applied to personalized variable data printing. The VDP process is much more than just printing with new technology, though; it's a fundamental change in how printing is perceived, utilized and produced. A musket in the time of the American Revolution

Digital Dreams Come True In Color
March 1, 2004

In-plants that have added digital color printing capabilities are thriving—and the call for more on-demand color work is only getting louder. By Cheryl Adams ACE Hardware certainly has a loyal customer base. "We have 6.2 million customers in our ACE Helpful Hardware Club," maintains Rick Salinas, production manager at the company's in-plant in Downers Grove, Ill. He says the club—which awards customers points, and eventually store credit, for purchases—is the "second largest customer-loyalty program in the country." The company's in-plant has played a major part in creating that loyalty, chiefly through the huge number of personalized color marketing materials it produces. In 1998

Xerox Hoping For A Monochrome Revolution
February 1, 2004

Xerox has high hopes for its new DocuTech product, built with iGen3 technology. By Bob Neubauer Recalling the way its DocuTech revolutionized black-and-white printing back in 1990, Xerox is hoping to establish another milestone with a new monochrome printer that incorporates technology used in its iGen3 digital color printer. Targeted at what it has dubbed the "mid-production" space, the new DocuTech Copier/Printer was introduced privately to journalists in Xerox's Rochester, N.Y., headquarters in December, and then unveiled formally in New York on January 29. Xerox officials could barely contain their excitement as they showed off the machine for the first time. "This

Black-and-white Copiers The Plain Truth
January 1, 2004

Despite the growth in color printing, black-and-white copiers still produce much of the work in today's in-plants. By W. Eric Martin With all the new and improved digital goodness popping up in these pages, it's easy to overlook the advances made in those unappreciated machines of yore: ye olde black-and-white copiers. These printing mainstays might not be the most exciting machines an in-plant manager can add to his or her arsenal, but they can't be discounted entirely because sometimes they're still the best tool for the job. What's more, today's models bear little resemblance to the faulty, all-too-easily broken machines that most people