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By Noel Ward, Editor@Large If you aren’t a Xeikon customer or prospect, or just didn’t go to the recent Xeikon Cafe in Chicago, you missed a great event. We’ll get to that. But first, a bit of history. That was then… A quarter century ago, at a trade show called IPEX (now a mere shadow of its...

By Noel Ward, Editor@Large Early fall is a fine time to go to south Florida. Hurricanes are (maybe) a bit less likely to disrupt travel plans, the temps have dropped out of the nineties and although the humidity is still there, the lower end of the Sunshine State is not a bad place to be...

By Noel Ward, Editor@Large Trying not to be snarkier than usual, I look back on four days at PRINT 17, remembering what it once looked like, thinking about what many I spoke with said about the show, and wondering what universe NPES lives in when they say this show went well. To be sure, the...

By Noel Ward, Editor @Large Back in the “long strange trip it’s been” days of the Seventies I was riding right seat in a west-bound 18-wheeler, talking with the driver about roads, distances and his life as a trucker. He pointed to a truck streaming east, running well above the speed limit...

Nothing inconsistent here. I'm just reporting what several seasoned print pros told me. The CTO was not the first one to tell me he was done buying offset presses. Heard this last year from IJ press owners. And... that some are dumping their (formerly) high-end toner boxes because they don't...

By Noel Ward The machine is deep blue, maybe 30 feet long, 10 feet high and deep. The owner calls it a variable offset press. It resides in a climate-controlled room, just outside of which an 8-color Speedmaster churns out work at 18,000 sheets per hour. The big blue inkjet press may be far...

Hi Visar, Just saw your response. Sadly there's not a quick answer to your question. And if you don't have digital presses you have somewhat fewer options. Still, begin with your presses. The major offset press makers and the companies that sell plate-setters have digital workflow software...

By Noel Ward, Editor@Large Raise your hand if you remember jobs coming in on CDs or DVDs. Thanks! Now raise your hand if you remember jobs coming in on Zip Drives? A few more. Very good! How about on SyQuest drives? Excellent! (How does if feel to be that old?) Finally, how many of you had...

Chris R... With 11 million clicks on your 7010 you don't have much to complain about. Color toner machines normally have issues well before that point, and all the things mentioned here are not unusual on that box. Or various others. In my opinion, Xerox is trying to get back into the game and...

I'm more familiar with the Canon, but both are very good machines. Personally, I like the Canon, but such judgements are pretty subjective. As you already have a Canon, you might get a sweeter deal from your Canon dealer. Unless one machine has real advantages over the other for your needs...

By Noel Ward, Editor@Large Taking the jackets off your offset presses is the first advantage of adding LED-UV dryers to your press. After that, things get even better, putting an end to conventional drying methods while eliminating environmental concerns associated with old-school UV curing...

By Noel Ward In the mid-90s I was going into print shops, setting up internal networks, training prepress people on using QuarkXPress and dragging many shop owners kicking and screaming into the tenuous new world of digital file prep and digital printing. Some embraced the new technology while...

By Noel Ward, Editor@Large They served champagne. It was a product launch, after all. About halfway through the afternoon, at the far end of a meeting room deep within the Boca Raton Resort, Canon pulled back the curtain on the Océ Colorado 1640. Rolling out an entirely new set of...

By Noel Ward You’ve been doing a nice mix of commercial printing and have a host of satisfied customers. A digital press or two have been taking up some real estate on your shop floor for a couple of years, helped expand your reach, and now you’re looking for more opportunities. You’re thinking...

By Noel Ward, Editor@Large Is it just me or does it seem to anyone else that print technology is slowing down? First, we seem to be in a time that’s nearly devoid of breakthroughs, those game-changing technological moments when the universe changes to uncover a totally different way of...

By Noel Ward, Editor @ Large Sometime last year you may have gone to a trade show. What did you see? Did it matter? Did it push you over the edge to actually buy something? Or was it a semi-justifiable excuse to get out of the shop for a couple of days? It's OK if your answers are Not much; No...

Canon Doubles Down on One By Noel Ward, Editor @ Large Long Island was humid. Hot. And flying in from the Maritimes took some time. But for a Canon event the effort is always worthwhile. Here’s a short take. Two or three times a year Canon updates journalists and analysts on how the...

Will get there on photos. Have an incredibly full schedule, but will add some photos as I go.

By Noel Ward drupa 2016, day 1 One of the fascinating things about drupa is how it reflects both subtle and massive changes in the print industry. It used to be that Heidelberg, long the largest exhibitor here, had a permanent presence in Hall 1 with one of its massive Sunday presses installed...

by Noel Ward, Editor @ Large One thing I’ve found in my 20-odd years in this industry is that you can never ignore Xerox. While the company’s shift in focus to business process outsourcing (BPO) a few years back took much of the company’s emphasis off of print, the recent split into two...