Globally, short-run production of international titles – typically for holidaymakers, expats and businesspeople – is the most widespread use of digital newspaper printing technology.
In Europe, Africa and the Gulf, Stroma – located beside London’s Heathrow airport – is a pioneer in the field, printing a variety of work on Océ equipment, while another British company, Miller Newsprint is behind Kodak-equipped sites which print dozens of international titles in locations such as Greece and Malta. Kodak’s Versamark inkjet is also in use at Rotocéan in Réunion – an island in the Indian Ocean – while Atlas Printing in Dubai uses Screen’s TruepressJet 520.
Flag-waver for digital newspapers in the USA – and the TKS JetWeb press, of which they have a couple – is Rodd Winscott’s Topweb in Chicago.
The company also differentiates itself from those mentioned above in that digital print stands alongside traditional offset – they have two single-width Goss presses, each of four towers – and competes with it.
He cites a sample 48-page tabloid with 12 pages of full colour, where the chargeable price is similar at 2500 copies but the profit of US$730 is almost eight times what it would be if it were printed offset. At 7500 copies, the profit is still higher if the job is printed digitally, but rather than have the digital press tied up for seven hours (against about two-and-a-half on one of the Goss presses) he would opt to print it offset.
Not that there’s always a choice: A local college whose newspaper has grown from 4500 to 6000 copies pays a 15 per cent premium to have it printed digitally because of its print quality and environmental footprint.
At the other end of the scale, the company has printed a newspaper-format souvenir for a wedding – charging $500 for a job that “cost $50 to do and opened doors” – but knocked back a 37-copy army daily because of the prepress workload.
“Previously we had a minimum of 1000 copies printed offset and that was extraordinarily expensive, but now we’re doing 200-300 copies efficiently on the digital presses,” he says.
“Its exceedingly efficient, and we print one daily with just two people.”
A variable cut-off folder which handles a variety of format changes in minutes boosts flexibility, and using standard paper stocks, typically 30 lb (45 gsm) – “we bought expensive digitally-optimised paper but haven’t used it” – means no paper changes and less inventory.
The biggest material cost is ink – “whoever said there was no such thing as liquid gold was wrong,” says Winscott – although he expects more competitive prices when a third approved supplier joins DuPont and Toyo.
A variable data package provides for changing one-tenth of the data, and Winscott says he plans to start printing mailing labels with it, and also to explore markets for sheeted work.
On training, Winscott says a move to CTP eight years ago prepared the company for the prepress demands, handled by “a very competent group of systems-knowledgeable young people”.
“If I have a question about computers, I’ll ask my 16 year-old daughter; if she doesn’t know she’ll ask her 11-year-old brother,” he says.
Reliability has been outstanding, with the press down twice, only because of contractor or operator foul-ups. “We were the first to buy the TKS press, first to buy a second and may be the first to buy a third press,” he says, with changes in technology likely to prompt an upgrade in about half the equipment’s “seven-to-ten-year life cycle”. Speed has been an issue, but is offset by the ability to double-up production of a job.
Topweb’s customers – “mostly ‘mom and pop’ operations with a staff of under ten” – look to them for ideas, and Winscott tries not to disappoint: “We spend time coming up with things that work, give them free prototypes to help them experiment and do things like giving them pink newsprint for community breast cancer awareness projects that will make them look good,” he says.
“We’ve been able to develop relationships with printers, designers and publishers which wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.”
Peter Coleman
Static or variable – a choice of opportunities
If your need is for small quantities of the same version of a newspaper, there is more than one way of delivering them.
And you may be able to have the best of both worlds.
Inkjet web presses come in all shapes and sizes, and the need for speed can sometimes be offset by lower cost and product flexibility. Some digital presses can also print higher quality at slower speeds, with the ability to print on better paper stocks including glossy paper.
And of course, levels of automation on offset newspaper presses has brought breakeven print orders down to only a few thousand copies. Goss International’s Magnum Compact claims to compete with digital in this area with complete or partial changeovers of all-colour editions in a couple of minutes, higher production speeds and the option of non-stop versioning.
Offset-printed editions can also be personalised on-the-fly with imprinting systems such as Kodak’s Prosper S series, which uses inkjet printheads for black-only or full-colour imaging in 100 mm wide stripes down the length of the web.
Great for special offers and lottery numbers, the technology is also being used to give buyers of a print edition a daily code to access paywall-protected online content as Germany’s Bild and News UK tabloid The Sun have found.
Press makers including Goss and manroland (below) have also floated the idea of linking inkjet print engines with offset press towers. manroland – which has plans for a slower single-width offset press, probably to be built in India – showed this diagram at a media briefing. It links an unnamed inkjet engine with an offset press, newspaper folder and its own digital finishing line.