Inkjet's Age, a print supplement to Quick Printing, is a business and technology brand dedicated to corporate and senior management and focusing on issues surrounding inkjet printing technology in all its forms. Inkjet's Age covers the industry news,
Issue link: https://quickprinting.epubxp.com/i/374926
14 SEPTEMBER 2014 • INKJET'S AGE www.MyPRINTResource.com Mixing inkjet with newspaper print- ing is nothing new. For a long time, basic inkjet capabilities were added either inline or in finishing for addressing and perhaps to add other customized content to a newspaper printed using traditional non- heatset, web-offset presses. And this is still largely the role that inkjet plays in news- paper printing and publishing. This pro- cess is officially called "imprinting," and in industry parlance it is considered to be a different process than what we typically think of as "printing." What new inkjet printheads and high- speed printing systems have allowed, how- ever, is what can perhaps best be thought of as "imprinting on steroids," where entire sections of newspapers can be segmented and customized. It also is being used to cre- ate customized and interactive ads—adding QR codes or personalized URLs to news- paper ads on the fly. And all of this can be done inline at offset press speeds. It's Ex-Pat One role that inkjet is playing in newspa- pers is in the creation of small production runs of newspapers for overseas holiday travelers and ex-patriates. It is the M.O. of a distribute-then-print model. "On the French island of Réunion off the coast of Africa, we have a Versamark VL printer that is printing the French- language newspapers that are prepared in France and distributed electronically and then printed in small to moderate quanti- ties on the island," said Will Mansfield, worldwide marketing, Kodak Inkjet. "We have similar business models in Europe, and on islands off the coast of Spain, where oftentimes foreign language titles are printed in a distribute-then-print Beyond Imprinting: I t would seem like a no-brainer. Newspaper circulations are dropping, and have been since the 1980s. Personalized/customized printing is proving to be a key application for newspapers, as it is elsewhere, so you would think that digital printing, and high-speed inkjet printing in par- ticular, would be ideal for newspaper printers and publishers. And you'd be right—except that inkjet printing of newspapers has yet to make substantial inroads in newspaper printing, at least in North America. In Europe and Asia, however, it's not a completely different story, but different enough. By RICHARD ROMANO With High-Speed Inkjet, Newspaper Publishers Can "Think Local" model. On the island of Malta they are also printing the local newspapers." The reasons for inkjet's growth in these newspaper markets are not a million miles removed from our own experiences close to home: circulations are decreas- ing, page counts are decreasing, and even page formats are getting smaller, so the overall newspaper printing requirements inch closer to the "sweet spot" for digital printing. And that Sweet Spot Is…? "That's the classic question, 'what is the quantity?'" laughed Dario De Cian, man- aging director of Centro Stampa Quo- tidiani (CSQ) Spa., a newspaper printer based in Lombardy, Northern Italy. The real question, said De Cian, is "how many pages, not how many copies." CSQ was founded in 2000, starting out with tra- Inkjet-printed newspaper circulars and flyers can be versioned "hyper- locally" to drive customers to the nearest retail or service location.