The preferred method of printing

If the publication and printing of newspapers become news, it means that there are technological innovations. Digital printing products are a living example.
The only thing that makes politicians more interested in making news is to turn the matter into news. The miracle of the Financial Times (FT) in the world forum in South Africa left a deep impression on Mr. Tony Blair.
In Johannesburg, the Ince Digital Press prints more than 6,000 Financial Times a day, with an average of more than 2,000 printed in the evening. This is a much higher profit than the 1,500 that had been airlifted from Frankfurt before April.
For the Financial Times, this result was unexpected and it was a milestone in the use of digital technology for remote newspaper printing. This is also proof of the success of the equipment provider Océ and its Digital Newspaper Network.
However, this concept became stagnant a few months later. Although large international newspapers are eager to obtain more sales in overseas markets, several digital printing equipment suppliers also hope to achieve breakthroughs in technology this year.

Mr. Paul Krisson, the business development manager of the printing system of Océ, which installed the printing equipment with the Financial Times, said that the current economic situation is not conducive to the issuance and printing of newspapers. The original goal of setting up 50 Océ printing points next year seems to be far away.
“We think we should establish more print points, but during the entire economic downturn, publishers’ advertising revenue has decreased by 50%. Profits are not irrelevant. They very much want to negotiate with us, but we have not yet developed so far.” Say.
Richard Bolton, head of financial services printing services, agreed with the statement: "If we are still in a boom time two years ago, we will open more printing points. This is undoubted. However, advertising revenue is too poor for all. People are disadvantaged. What can we do in the downturn? We can only cut costs and postpone investment."
However, Mr. Bolton is convinced that the digital production of newspapers will continue to grow in terms of the number of newspapers and print points used by publishers.

Consider adding Other equipment "In South Africa we are investigating whether to add equipment in Johannesburg or Cape Town. If the demand for newspapers continues to increase, the offset will reach 5000-6000 copies, so we will involve airlifts between the two cities. The issue of digital remote printing is still a matter of timeliness and cost balance, and the relationship is very close." He said, "I think that in some places like Australia, the next development may be in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Digital printing is implemented in various cities such as Perth, instead of just offsetting in one place like now."
Large international newspapers such as the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, International Herald Tribune and the Toronto Global Post have faced the issue of how to bring their publications into the market in a timely and economic manner. Usually a print volume of 7000 will require adjustments to local print and air shipments to balance time delays and total costs.

The digital approach has changed the way all middlemen often use commercial printing equipment to print at point-of-sale, especially Newspaper Direct and Presspoint. Newspaper outlets usually issue 150 newspapers on restaurants and cruise ships, mainly using IBM's Infoprint technology and Xerox's Docutech technology. Last month, the company signed a new agreement with InterContinental Hotels & Resorts to provide newspapers for its 140 hotels.
PEPC Worldwide mainly prints newspapers on demand via news kiosks, and has recently achieved assets of $12.75 million through the Input-Process-Output (IPO) model. Earlier this year, the company had 80 payment points and printing points in 32 countries, mainly based on Xerox's engine and media materials from Dell PCs and 3M, plus PEPC's own technology.
But for publishers, the most promising model is to use digital printing equipment to simulate the offset printing model.
In April 2001, Océ created a miracle in the short-run newspaper printing market by launching the Digital Newspaper Network to print newspapers directly on newsprint at the same price as offset printing.
Océ renamed NewsPress DemandStream 8090, and it runs online with the Hunkeler finishing line with cutting and stapling capabilities. This combination can print 400 copies of a 48-pp newspaper per hour at a resolution of 600 dpi.
The system's single-sheet cost is 2 pence per page, but it can only be printed in monochrome, and the size at the time was limited to 317 × 463 mm. For newspapers like the Financial Times, this means reducing images by 80%, which is a serious problem.
The first production line was installed at Stroma (a part of the Creative Print Group) in Wembley, in the north of London, and printed the Neue Zuricher Zeitung newspaper in London. It takes 16 hours for the newspaper to arrive from Frankfurt before the line is used.
Stroma now prints five kinds of newspapers between 5,000 and 6,000 copies, including NZZ, German Borsen Zeitung, Danish Borsen, Sydney Morning Mail and, most recently, Toronto Globe & Mail. Glen Lue, sales manager for the Global Mail in Toronto, said: “We are convinced that digital print readership can be increased by at least 300%.” Some publishers also use Océ's kit to print newspapers for airplanes and express trains.
Mr. Krisson said: “This concept means that newspaper publishers can maintain the look and feel of the original newspapers, and they can reach the sales window in the morning. 50% of the traditional international copy newspapers cannot be sold.”
One of the added value points of digital personalized printing is gradually having an impact. ABC's rules show that the basic proportion of each column is the same, based on circulation. In the United Kingdom, this proportion is 80% and there is some flexibility. However, the German ratio rose to 100%. However, the newspaper considered the division of the layout in order to attract advertisers to specific sections.
Although the distribution area of ​​newspapers is no longer so strict, the distribution of data is still very strict. PDF is a file format selected when a file is processed by a central server of a high-speed data distribution network. Océ uses Higgs international standards in the UK. In Scandinavia, IBM uses a one-way receiving hub and then distributes it to printing points operated by Pitney Bowes Management Services.
Steven Gibbs, who is responsible for IBM's printing system in Europe, said: "Because the colors are consistent with the past, everyone wants to adopt this method, but the price is still to be considered. This should be driven by the market, and depends on the color of digital devices. , speed and price."

International benefits Xerox operates through its main partners (Premier Partners). Mr. David Owen, head of the company’s European newspaper, said: “We are working hard to integrate newspapers with major partners. This is different from the approach used by companies such as Océ. They want to build a complete business system around them. From the long-term. From the point of view, we hope to provide international benefits that can compete with offset quality for large-volume color printing."
Xerox's Docutechs printing facility for hotels currently prints 200 copies per hour, while DC2060 is used to print covers, but it can only cut publications, so Xerox has been conducting binding and binding experiments.
Color on the cruise ship and in the hotel is of utmost importance to today's American users. Ms. Mary McClory, Europe’s distribution director, said: “We printed newspapers directly on cruise ships and hotels. The situation is very good. Although the newspapers are monochrome, users are happy to accept them.”
“We did a digital printing test in Tel Aviv, but due to the inappropriate timing of the selection, the test was not very successful. People need to see the colors and they need to be at an acceptable price.”
John Tuygil, the director of distribution at the International Herald Tribune, said that this approach has evolved considerably, but the model is different from other publications. He said: “We printed at 22 printing sites and sold in 180 countries, each of which is self-financing. Small batches of customized print production are very suitable, especially for us like us. Service provider. "If the cost is right, we will use this approach.

The mature printing environment explores newspaper publishers that, if digital newspaper printing is to go beyond the experimental stage and switch from small printing sites to full-scale newspaper production, some key obstacles must be resolved.
They combine speed, color, paper, finished product size, unit cost, and postpress terminology on different occasions.
For the Financial Times, to meet the 6,000 print requests during the South African World Forum, the News Press of Océ needed to run “overnight and morning”. Richard Bolton, manager of Financial Times Printing Services, said: “We need sophisticated digital printing technology that prints faster. This market is growing every year, and I can see another 30% increase soon.”
Although many digital devices can print on newsprint, the size of the product is very limited. At present, IBM's Infoprint uses a full-width paper roll. The Océ device increased the width of the paper by 30 mm, increasing the height of the newspaper to 493 mm, thereby increasing the digital version of the Financial Times to 85% of the offset version.
The 48 pp production capacity also provides publishers with the ability to print according to the number of pages they need. The price of leaflets printed on the market has dropped to about 2 pence per page, and newspapers of ordinary size are about 1 USD each. However, publishers believe that this price still needs to be reduced.
The determinable color is the key issue, and the ink jet method seems to lead the trend of color, although the reliability of this method is lower than that of the photoelectric method, and the density of the ink drop on the newsprint paper is also a problem. A publisher has challenged the color vision provided by equipment manufacturers. However, another publisher believes it may take two to three years to solve the main problem.
Versamark's digital printing equipment is one of the best in many devices. One expert with another vendor said that he had already seen some samples. At an international exhibition, manufacturers had publishers pick up digital pages from offset pages. Most of them could not recognize them.
"This does not mean that this device can already be used for full-frame printing. There is still some necessary work to do."
Post-press processing equipment can meet the requirements well. Hunkeler binding equipment has been applied to several publishers, including Océ and Xeikon. In Aviv Paper & Software's Combo production line in Tel Aviv, this year has been streamlined, it can be converted from book printing to newspaper printing within 30 minutes. It handles the Wall Street Journal output from two Xeikon-Nipson 7000 presses.
The Hunkeler UW4 unwinding module can be mounted on the right corner of the device to save space. It has a paper feed width of 165 mm to 520 mm. It can cut every sheet into 4 to 12 sheets and can collect and fold pages.