Key Factors for Successful Digital Printing - Paper

Although a new generation of digital printers can effectively replace the role of offset presses, paper factors are often overlooked in the high-tech electronic printing process.

At present, the digital environment that emerged has caused paper manufacturers to face a variety of methods that differ from traditional paper and ink and toner. Fortunately, manufacturers have recognized and understood the role paper plays when users want high-quality, high-resolution prints.

After understanding the importance of properties such as paper smoothness, grammage, whiteness, and fiber size, paper manufacturers have created a new generation of digital printing paper for digital printing needs. These new paper products, developed specifically for digital document output devices, help digital devices print out the high quality printing products people expect.

Digital Paper Development

In the application of short-lived jobs, laser printers have gradually become more common than copying and traditional offset printing. In the copying process, the transferred image is only 70% of the original density; and the laser printer can produce clearer, more professional images. The initial driving force for this change is the change from "printing to distribution" to "distribution to printing" in the office environment. Unlike printing in a certain place and then distributing it, the company sends electronic documents to the corresponding personnel. These people print as needed.

In the traditional offset printing department, a laser printer is now placed next to the offset printing press. When a job is received, the person in charge will decide whether to use an offset press or a printer for production based on the production cycle of the job and the economic conditions affected by changes in the data. Because according to current people's requirements for color, book production and quality of high-grade printing, the paper must be able to adapt to the needs of high-grade laser printing.

With the increasing demand for laser printers, inkjet printers have also become popular. Until now, most ink-jet printing papers have been consumed in the SOHO market. Inkjet printer manufacturers are trying to increase monochrome printing speeds to 15ppm, making them an option for network printing in the office environment. In addition to the problem of low equipment cost, the cost of consumables for inkjet printers is expected to be lower than that of laser printers in both black and white and color output. Features such as low cost, high speed, and color acceptability may promote the growth of inkjet printers in the office environment.

The use of laser printers and multifunction devices has led to the flourishing development of paper. Digital paper has grown in both quantity and variety.

True color

Before 1996, no equipment with a speed of “above 25 ppm” existed in any device for producing color digital images. Therefore, the amount of paper used was small, but with the appearance of new equipment, the market shortage rapidly increased. It is expected that by 2001, The annual paper consumption will reach 50,000 tons with an annual growth rate of 90%.

The new generation of digital color printers including the Xerox DocuColor40 and CanonCLC1000 provide color output capabilities that can compete with offset presses and provide more options for short runs. The new "high-quality laser printing paper" is the preferred printing material for these devices.

The smoothness and formation of paper is a key factor in achieving high resolution printing. When output at a resolution of 600*600 dpi, there are 36,000 points per square inch. The latest digital presses can be printed in a variety of sizes of dots, with the aim of improving the impression of the quality of the prints. A smooth, smooth printing surface can exhibit fine dot changes with relatively high print quality; on a relatively rough standard copy paper surface, fine dots can be lost and print quality can be reduced. For color prints, customers generally prefer contrasting images.

In the digital color field, there is also a thick paper that is used as a cover of a book or book, which is also a very difficult matter. Because the final customer wants a strong book cover, most word printers have a certain degree of adaptability to the thickness of the paper. Until recently, the thickest cover paper was only 60 pounds. In comparison, the cover sheet for an offset press is 120 pounds. Digital press manufacturers are improving equipment by widening the passage of the paper feed section so that thicker paper can pass through. The latest color digital printers are capable of delivering 65 pounds, 80 pounds or even thicker paper.

Basic black and white prints

In the field of black-and-white printing, the on-demand printing capabilities of digital presses can be used to produce products such as books, manuals, and product catalogs, which were often produced using offset presses. These products can be double-sided printing. Therefore, the paper with very low transmittance has a great demand in the offset printing market. Laser opaque paper is now called "digital opaque paper" because it is applied to digital printers. Digital printing suppliers are inspired by the offset printing industry and provide digital opaque paper.

In this way, digital opaque paper emerged as a new kind of paper. Opaque paper is a product that uses opaque fillers to increase paper opacity without increasing the weight of the paper. These papers were originally due to the requirements of the publishing market. Because publishers need the paper not only to ensure a certain degree of opacity, but also to maintain the lowest weight and size to reduce transport costs. Soon these papers transitioned to the laser printed sheetfed market. In addition to laser printers, enterprise-owned printers and commercial printers also have the same publishing requirements. In any case, traditional offset printing paper had to be adjusted to suit laser printing requirements.

In offset printing, print suppliers also have lighter, opaque offset paper available. Therefore, there are many applications for ordering lightweight digital printing paper. However, this type of paper has a certain natural defect in the design of the transfer path of the digital printing press. That is, the weight of the paper on the current device has a lightest limit. Typically, most digital sheetfed presses use 20 lb. bond paper (50 lb. body paper) as the lightest weight paper. At present, 18 pounds is the lightest weight of the fast, digital printing equipment acceptable sheet. However, many customers still want lighter paper, which poses new challenges for papermakers.

With the development of science and technology, it is now allowed to use non-porous web paper for web-fed laser printers. The use of roll-feed printers as a replacement for high-speed sheetfed printers is a very strong trend, especially for monochrome printers with speeds above 80 ppm. The emergence of non-porous webs reduces the amount of paper the printer uses when printing on apertured webs. It is predicted that by the end of 2000, 40% of the paper consumed by high-speed laser printers was web.

Because of this technological transformation on the equipment, manufacturers now offer traditional single-sheet electrostatic paper and laser paper in a new configuration: rotating on a stencil at the drum position. Georgia-Pacific's "imager roller" is one such example. For this new type of special roller, there are five large-size sheet-fed products that can be printed.

Manufacturers of digital color presses also responded to new requirements for digital web color presses. For example, Xeikon digital presses must authenticate all Xeikon's qualification procedures for all webs used on the press to create a corresponding “script file” containing more than 20 key press variables. item. When using this paper on this digital press, the operator can use the variable settings in this document as a starting point to adjust the equipment and the printing process to help optimize the printing process. This scripting process has caused many existing products to be remodeled so that new types of paper support all Xeikon digital presses. These devices include: Xeikon DCP 32 and 50D, Agfa Chromapress, Xerox DocuColor 70 and 100, IBM InfoColor 70 and 100.

Future trends in digital paper

Digital presses such as Xeikon have been able to replicate high-quality commercial colors and are therefore competing in the offset printing market. Xeikon generally introduces devices with a printing width limited to 12.5 inches or less. In January 1999, Xeikon introduced its 50D digital press with 19.5 inches wide. In this way, digital presses have become an alternative to large-format offset presses. As a result, some prophets believe that a large amount of paper supporting this device will appear. However, the growth base of this market is very small, so the consumption will not be very large these years.

In short, if we closely track the entire non-coated paper market, we will find that with the development of new equipment and the improvement of new technologies, there will be some very important changes. These changes provide paper suppliers with the greatest value-added opportunities, and printers can also provide more creative solutions based on customer needs.