What Is Drupa and Why Should I Care?

By Frank Romano

Drupa is the name of the largest print-related exhibition in the world. It is sort of a cross between a world’s fair and the storming of the Bastille. It is the place where new printing technology is introduced. Sometimes, it even works.

The first thing that hits you is the sheer size of it all. It takes an hour to walk from one side of the messe (fairgrounds) to the other. There are about 20 buildings filled with every kind of printing and related device on earth. And there are 360,000 people from all over the world.

The day before the formal opening is when Heidelberg has their traditional press conference. But they were usurped by Landa, a company that revealed a new nanographic printing technology. In fact, HEI is partnering with Landa on a future printing device.

The Landa news became the hottest topic at the show. Benny Landa invented the HP Indigo digital printers. His new nano ink can print on any substrate from plain paper to film without any special coating. The ink is delivered by inkjet heads, and it lays down a thickness half that of offset, which means less ink cost. Landa has also partnered with Komori and manroland.

Two of Landa’s presses were shown, a cut-sheet B2-format Landa S7 and a web-fed (52 centimeter/20.47 inch) Landa W50. These printers are part of a seven-product portfolio of Landa-branded products, most of which support up to eight colors.

Landa NanoInk is comprised of pigment particles a fraction of the size of a human hair. Powerful absorbers of light, these tiny particles deliver high-quality images that are unusually resistant to abrasion.

For the first time, commercial printers and their customers will not have to choose between the versatility and short-run economics of digital printing and the low cost-per-page and high productivity of offset printing. Now they can have both.

Digital printing was the hottest technology. Xeikon will have its usual powdered toner and a new liquid toner. Delphax is using Memjet inkjet heads in one model as is Canon/Oce. 4-up or B2 digital printers were in abundance. There are now nine companies with 4-up sheetfed inkjet presses.

Sheeted or roll-fed, digital printing was the key process at Drupa. Inkjet digital printing, that is. Most of the suppliers upped the speed; some increased the sheet size. All have high-dpi quality.

The reason for all the digital activity is short runs and longer short runs.

The finishing folks were all over the show-offline or integrated into the digital printer. There was a lot of built-in quality control and automated workflow software.

Hybrid printing was everywhere. That’s where you put an inkjet system at the tail-end of the offset or flexo press. Presstek and all offset manufacturers use this inkjet printing for spot personalization.

So far, there have been 22 press conferences. All of them announced something new, but in many cases it is a year or more away. Printers should keep making money with what they have so they can afford the new stuff.

The show confirms what we already know-digital printing is slowly but surely encroaching on offset. Offset will not go away but it is seeing and will see reduced volume. Print buyers will have more choice in printing processes

© 2012 Frank Romano. All rights reserved.