Gene Therapy: Effective Digital Print Strategies

Regarding comparative ink-jet versus toner reproduction quality, I checked with a few digital print buyers on whether they felt there was a material difference that would affect readability or the user experience in choosing between ink-jet or laser (toner-based) systems. The consensus seems to be that there isn’t, although there are material differences in operating costs and quality-control issues from the printer’s standpoint.

Neil Litt, director of editorial, design and production at Princeton University Press, observes that “the difference in quality is more determined by the skill of the operator than the nature of the equipment.”

Another publisher shared some off-the-record thoughts that an additional consideration is whether the digital print will last as long as the expected life of the paper: “One of our first concerns when we moved to a digital print strategy was whether or not the toner would fade over time. We had the digital printers provide us with independent test results that ultimately reassured us that our fears were not justified,” the publisher says.

There seems to be cause for substantial confidence that ink and toner technologies will keep pace with demands for longevity. Graphic arts technology expert Dr. Frank Romano—Rochester Institute of Technology professor emeritus, editor of the “Pocket Pal” and author of more than 44 books dealing with the graphic arts industry—projects that digital print will overtake offset, with at least 55 percent of the market, by the year 2050. As a practical matter, most titles today that benefit from the life-extension and economics of digital print are onecolor, black-and-white general trade, for which quality variations can be welltolerated with no degrading of the reading experience or appearance.

Real-Time Delivery On-Demand
The technologies driving digital print today, in black-and-white and color, provide automated prepress sophistication and quality control that were still a gleam in the eye of equipment and systems designers at that famous BookExpo 10 years ago.