Frankly Speaking: The Rise of the Full-Color Book
HP changed the paradigm with its Inkjet Web Press in 2008. There are now more than 100 worldwide users and the roll can be 20, 30 or 42 inches wide. It is popular with book printers. Courier Corp. in Chelmsford, Mass. has three of them at present.
Despite this advance, most full-color books continued to be produced on small format (12" x 18" or 14" x 20") duplex printers. Canon, HP Indigo, Kodak NexPress, Konica Minolta, MGI, Ricoh and Xerox helped to create the on-demand printing market because they specialized in smaller-format printers. One-off and very-short-run book printing became a primary market for vanity presses and self-published authors, but not ideal for publishers looking for longer short runs. Toner printers use organic photoconductors which have limits in width which is among the reasons some of these machines could not print a larger sheet.
Frank Romano is Professor Emeritus at RIT School of Media Sciences.
%0D%0A%20%20Before%20we%20go%20further,%20let's%20define%20some%20terms,%20as%20printers%20are,%20in%20essence,%20quite%20different%20from%20presses.%20Printers%20regenerate%20the%20impression%20for%20each%20copy%20from%20a%20digital%20file,%20which%20allows%20them%20to%20use%20electronic%20collation%20and%20print%20the%20pages%20of%20a%20book%20block%20in%20order.%20Presses,%20on%20the%20other%20hand,%20use%20a%20physical%20image%20carrier%20(a%20plate)%20to%20reproduce%20large%20printed%20sheets%20which%20are%20folded%20into%20signatures,%20gathered%20and%20bound.%20But%20printers%20become,%20in%20essence,%20presses%20when%20either%20the%20sheet%20size%20or%20output%20speed%20starts%20to%20approach%20the%20specs%20of%20an%20analog%20reproduction%20device%20(aka%20a%20press).%20A%20"printer%2Fpress"%20is%20my%20term%20for%20printers%20that%20have%20many%20characteristics%20of%20a%20press.<%2Fspan>%0D%0A%0D%0A%0D%0Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.bookbusinessmag.com%2Farticle%2Fthe-rise-full-color-book%2F" target="_blank" class="email" data-post-id="1410" type="icon_link"> Email Email
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