Digital printing can accept the output printing of computer files, and first edit and process general documents and images on the computer, and then output and print them. Moreover, the data source of digital printing can be obtained directly from the Internet. Customers can send their own images and texts to be printed. The information is transmitted through the Internet to a professional printing company that you are satisfied with. The professional printing company will process it in various ways and then pass the proofing results to the customer through the Internet. If the customer is satisfied, it can be printed directly on the machine. Digital printing does not have high requirements for files. It can accept various formats of Mac and PC files that are currently used by designers in many advertising companies. It is more convenient and faster to receive and process remote PDF data information, which fully embodies the The convenience of digital printing. After digital printing receives customer-satisfied computer files, it can use fast software and hardware RIP to generate PS files for direct printing; it can also directly separate colors into four-color films through an electrical separation system, and then use printing plates on ordinary printing machines after printing. print. Digital printing usually produces one or two proofs of a printed matter. After passing the standard test strip detection and debugging, the finished product can be printed. Defects that the customer is not satisfied with can be directly modified, which is convenient and timely. It is different from the traditional printing process, including output power separation. Compared with the processes such as printing, proofing, imposition, PS printing, and computer production, it greatly saves time and reduces part of the production cost. Prints that usually take three or four days to be delivered can be delivered in a few hours. In the field of packaging and printing, digital printing mainly has the following applications: product test packaging, small batches of standard boxes and user-customized packaging with special requirements, etc. In small batches of standard boxes and user-customized packaging with special requirements, digital printing will have a very good market development space.
The application in European and American countries is very successful. Contrary to the indifference to digital printing in the domestic packaging field, digital printing has attracted great attention in developed countries such as Europe and the United States. In many European and American countries, digital printing is increasingly used in the packaging field. Even though its cost is still relatively expensive, it is gradually forming a scale. In European and American countries, digital printing is entering the packaging field in different ways. For example, digital printing is being combined with other processes including traditional flexo printing and varnishing. The reason why Prestige Label Co., Ltd. entered the field of digital printing is that they believe that most of the label printing business will eventually be realized digitally. Later, they purchased an HP Indigo WS4000 digital printing press to further expand their production capabilities. The machine can print on a wide range of materials and can perform seven-color printing on paper, film, aluminum foil and cardboard. Digital printing enables Prestige to produce short-run labels. The printing field is more competitive. Due to variable data printing, the production cycle is shortened, and the company can provide customers with faster and more services. Digital printing enhances the company's competitiveness at different levels in the existing market. Innovative Creative Packaging Solutions' core business is the provision of folding cartons for the pharmaceutical and nutraceutical industries. The company decided to enter the field of digital printing because it realized that traditional printing methods could no longer meet the new needs of customers. They selected the HP Indigo WS4000 because of its ability to produce high-quality labels on demand, as well as its many other unique features. WS4000 enables the company to combine medium and short-run operations with spot color, anti-counterfeiting, image changes, counting and personalization. In addition to better serving existing customers, the new technology's multi-functional and cost-saving features make the company more competitiveness, thereby further penetrating into some new target markets. In the past five years, printpack, a large packaging and printing company headquartered in Atlanta, USA, has been continuously purchasing digital prepress equipment, and its current digital operation level has reached 85 to 95. Since the company mainly prints long-run jobs, when customers require short-run jobs, the company cooperates with Watson, another fully digital printing company. Watson recently installed an Omnius One Shot color digital press. Use this computer direct printing system to print short-run jobs, the delivery time is short, and the printing cost is much lower than flexographic printing.
It is expected that from 2006 to 2010, most printing companies will turn to digital color printing. A Heidelberg executive predicts that digital color printing presses will grow at an annual rate of 30% in the United States to reach $46 billion by 2008. The development of digital printing in China is slow. Peking University Founder, as one of the leading domestic IT companies, is leading the trend of digitalization and networking of printing in China. Founder Electronics has always focused on typesetting. The company's independently developed raster image processor (RIP) and digital workflow have successfully entered international markets including Europe and the United States with their excellent functions. With more than ten years of printing and publishing technology and accumulated experience, Founder Electronics has condensed it into products including Feiteng integrated typesetting software, Founder Century RIP, a full range of Founder font products, Founder photo digital proofing software, database publishing software, Yinjie digital printing system, Changliu A full range of graphic arts products, including printing process management systems. Now Founder of Peking University and Fujifilm have joined forces to create a new commercial CTP solution for outstanding domestic printing companies based on the successful application experience of Founder's smooth Chinese printing workflow in dozens of well-known domestic companies. Founder has accumulated advantageous technologies in the publishing and printing industry for many years. In November 2001, Founder launched the Changliu printing process management system. Founder Changliu covers all products and technologies in the pre-press output link, fully adopts industry-standard open formats, uses the most advanced database and Internet technology, and adopts internationally accepted open PDF technology and JDF specifications. In Founder’s product strategy Occupying an important position in the world, Founder Changliu printing process management system fully meets the new needs of users in the Internet era. It is a complete, efficient, stable, reliable, and flexibly expandable digital workflow management system. This product won 8 perfect scores out of 10 projects in the international Seybold PDF printing workflow (output stage) competition. It has gained even more momentum domestically and has been accepted and recognized by many customers in just three years. . Although China's digital printing technology has made certain progress, and relevant people have been calling for the development of digital printing, the application and promotion of digital printing in China is still quite slow. Digital printing presses have become a hot spot in the market for several times, but they are still hesitant in their application. Most digital printing equipment is still in the experimental and trial stage. At present, only economically developed cities such as Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen on the eastern coast have a certain demand, while the demand in economically underdeveloped areas in the interior is very small. The high price of digital printing presses prohibits many users. According to the service life of printing presses, machines are replaced every 5 to 7 years in Europe and about 4 years in the United States. However, printing presses from many manufacturers in China often have not been replaced for more than ten years. Printing manufacturers are somewhat reluctant to purchase new equipment while the old machines are still usable, but cannot see profit returns in the short term. Nowadays, the technology update cycle is getting shorter and shorter, and the equipment invested heavily today is likely to have lower-cost products released soon, so printing manufacturers are worried that they will spend money in vain. The slow development of digital printing is also related to people's concepts. For printing practitioners, traditional printers are bound by their inherent concepts and have doubts about this emerging form of printing. For ordinary users, due to the influence of traditional printing concepts, most people have formed deep-rooted ideas about printing for a long time. They believe that printing can only do large-volume business. They do not know that the development of printing technology has already made on-demand printing possible. become reality. Users do not yet have a full understanding of digital printing. Early investors have not received satisfactory returns due to insufficient sources of activity, and successors have given up on digital printing and are not optimistic about digital printing. At the same time, because there are not many digital printing companies in China, and most of them are small in scale, they are unable to invest too much money in publicity. This also leads to the fact that digital printing cannot be known, familiar, and accepted by everyone for a while. Promote the development of digital printing. The role that digital printing will play in future packaging printing will be undoubted. Digital printing will provide an ideal solution for companies that require lower production costs without compromising quality. Digital printing will also play a greater role in label printing, but speed will still be a major deciding factor. To develop a new digital printing market, the most critical issue is printing speed.
Generally speaking, the faster the digital printing press, the wider its application range, and the more likely it is to develop areas that today seem not to be possible with digital printing. With the continuous innovation of digital printing technology, some existing traditional printing markets will be occupied by digital printing. At present, the speed of color digital printing presses can generally reach 100 pages/minute, which has expanded the market space and competitive strength of digital printing equipment. For example, the HP Indigo Press 5000 can print 4,000 color A4 pages per hour, and the Xeikon 5000 can print 130 A4 pages per minute. The black-and-white digital printing press can reach up to 2,000 pages per minute, which is very close to the general sheet-fed offset printing press, making it possible for printing companies to undertake large quantities of personalized jobs. As production printers increasingly demand high-speed, high-quality and flexible printing solutions, suppliers of high-end digital production printers are introducing new technologies and features at an unprecedented speed. The rise of digital color printing, variable data printing, direct mail and transactional promotional documents is driving demand for these production platforms. The options are now before us, and all we need to do is understand the pros and cons of each technology. Since each production printing system uses different technologies and has different features and options, it can be a challenge to understand their pros and cons and find the one that's right for you. Below we will discuss several common digital color production printers on the market, and focus on analyzing the technology of these devices and the characteristics of the inkjet market. Laser or inkjet? When choosing a digital production printer, we must first determine which printing technology best meets our production requirements. The two most basic options today are electrostatic and inkjet printing systems. Most major hardware vendors offer different models based on these technologies, each designed to meet a specific printing need. Electrostatic Printers Electrostatic printers first use an electric charge to transfer toner from a photosensitive drum to paper, and then fuse the toner into an image. This kind of printer can achieve higher resolution and print quality than inkjet printers when printing monochrome and color, so it is usually the first choice for customers with higher image quality requirements. However, the improvement of printing quality comes at the expense of printing speed and unit printing cost. Electrostatic printing is already a very mature technology, and most equipment manufacturers can provide customers with monochrome and color electrostatic printing products. With the increase in product categories, equipment manufacturers have a more thorough understanding of printing operations and service requirements, and they are also more forward-looking. The speed of monochrome printers continues to increase, but has almost reached the limit of existing technology; the speed of color printing equipment has also achieved rapid growth, and in some cases has even reached a level comparable to black and white printing, but until now So far, no technology has been able to significantly reduce the operating costs of color digital printing. Inkjet printers Inkjet systems create images by ejecting small droplets of ink directly onto the substrate. Inkjet printers offer many advantages over electrostatic printers, including faster print output, better modular design and scalability, and more reasonable costs. However, inkjet systems cannot achieve the high resolution of high-end electrostatic printing systems. Under normal circumstances, inkjet systems are mainly used to produce low-quality images. This printing system with the print head as the core has very complete functions and puts forward relatively complex requirements for the ink and delivery system.
In general, the technology used in inkjet systems is relatively new, and it has been recognized by the market earlier than electrostatic printers. An inkjet printer can contain multiple independent print heads, each of which manages an ink color, and the technology of the print head directly determines the quality, cost and speed of image creation. The two commonly used inkjet technologies at present are continuous inkjet technology and drop-on-demand inkjet technology. The ink flow emitted by a continuous inkjet printer is continuous and uninterrupted. They are dispersed into fine ink droplets through fine nozzles under the action of pressure.
Making a decision, today's market offers us a wide range of color digital printing solutions, both electrostatic and inkjet printing systems. HP, Pucci, Kodak Graphics Group, Océ, Punch Graphix and Xerox are all color digital printing system suppliers that we are familiar with.