A visit to the website of Centro Stampa Quotidiani – even through the hazy lens of Google’s translation – indicates that this is not a typical newspaper printing operation.

How many print sites carry reports and analysis of industry issues and technology as CSQ does in a blog of comment and events?

On the face of it, the joint venture between the publishers of two Italian dailies – L’Eco di Bergamo and Giornale di Brescia – is just a well-resourced and well run facility. The website, and the company’s venture into digital printing belie its greater vision…. and an investment of 120 million Euros (A$171 million) in 12 years.

Established in 2000, it has four double-width Wifag presslines – two OF370s with 530 cutoffs and two Evolution 373/6s with 450 mm cutoffs – Agfa prepress workflow including four Polaris platesetters, and a Müller Martini mailroom with Sitma single-copy wrapping.

The presses produce the newspapers of its partners, plus the four editions of 437,000-circulation daily La Provincia and Catholic daily Avvenire. It also prints Dutch daily De Telegraaf from June to September and German Sunday tabloid Bild am Sonntag from Easter to October.

The HP T230 inkjet web provides an extra dimension, printing hyperlocal sections for the Bergamo and Brescia dailies, extending the facility for foreign publishers to very short print runs, and producing customised glossy covers for free weekly magazines.

“Newspaper publishers need to create local editions in order to collect new local advertising,” says general manager Dario De Cian.

Installed last December, the digital press handles stock from 45 gsm newsprint to 115 gsm matt reel-to-reel – for finishing on a Hunkeler newspaper line – in a variety of formats including the sizes of the two dailies. Prepress is integrated into the existing Agfa Arkitex workflow.

It has been printing newspaper work – including Russian dailies Kommersant and Vedomosti, and Italian weekly Il Monviso – since January, plus covers and posters.

Digitally-printed sections for Giornale di Brescia contain hyperlocal editorial and advertising, and are virtually indistinguishable from the offset-printed paper.

De Cian says the press allows quality equivalent to traditional offset, and – thanks to its bonding-agent technology – enables the use of lightweight and porous papers of 45gsm without show-through.

Other digital products including one-to-one products – including ‘memorabilia’ front pages – business magazines and catalogues are planned.

“The new facility means we can print runs of 500-2000 copies to localise sections of publications and integrate them with conventionally printed sections,” De Cian says.

Peter Coleman