What if your newspaper could install a digital press in select airport terminals and offer travelers the latest news as they board their flights? Imagine delivering the afternoon news summary to dentist offices, beauty salons and resorts.

These are a few of the ideas I presented last month in the November issue of Newspapers & Technology.

Because I believe that the possibilities for on-demand newspapers are endless, at Graph Expo this past October I decided to investigate the state of the technology. I wanted to know which vendors where thinking about newspapers and among those, which offered the most attractive solution. I will now share what I discovered.

First, an explanation of the technology. The type of digital presses that will best serve the on-demand market are not digital offset web presses. They are presses that use some form of electrostatic or inkjet technology and offer variable-data printing options.

Vendor conundrum

Many of the vendors at Graph Expo were rather startled when I asked if they had considered printing short-run newspapers.

In fact, they looked at me as if I were a victim of an alien abduction. In earnest, I pleaded my case. I was talking about very short runs with maybe as few as 12 or 16 pages, at whatever size their current equipment could handle. The key here, I continued, is high-quality color printing that attracts new advertisers.

Heads tilted and brows twisted in contemplation. It was then that I introduced my partner in research, Paul Lynch, director of quality and commercial printing for the Chicago Tribune, hoping they would connect the dots. They did not. I moved on.

I will present to you only those vendors for whom the word newspaper not only sparked interest but who were also eager to offer a solution.

Oce Digital Newspaper Network

Ocˇ currently uses its worldwide customer network to print 18 titles. Among them are the Financial Times for readers in South Africa, The (Toronto) Globe & Mail for its London market, and The International Herald Tribune’s Asian edition for the Pacific Rim. Right now the technology is black only, although Oce says that it expects to introduce a color system by 2006.

The Oce Newspaper System 7000 uses electrophotographic LED technology. It can print up to 1,000, 24-page, 18.25-by-12.5-inch papers per hour on newsprint. While Oce claims “genuine newspaper quality,” the copies we saw were acceptable but somewhat less than genuine.

The lack of color also precludes the concept of gaining added revenue from advertising. However, with a network already in place, Oce does have a working solution for added revenue from on-demand editions in markets you might otherwise not be able to reach.

www.oce.com

Kodak Versamark

While the folks from Versamark readily admitted that they had not targeted the newspaper market, they were ready to offer a solution.

Versamark systems are modular, so you can choose resolutions (300-by-300 to 300-by-1,200 dots per inch), bindery options, color configurations (black, spot, process) and speeds, the fastest of which yields 2,000 single-sided pages per minute.

But after adding all the high-end options, the price tag can go as high as $4 million. But not to worry, says Versamark; it can calculate the exact cost per issue. Current customers are producing full color, 24-page catalogs at 48 cents each.

The technology is continuous inkjet and the web model uses 36-inch rolls. All Versamark systems offer 100 percent variable-data printing, which means you can substitute any image or text block on any page for different audiences.

www.kodakversamark.com

HP Indigo

Like Kodak Versamark, HP Indigo had not considered on-demand newspapers, but was very eager to talk about the possibility. The HP Indigo press w3200 is a web-fed system. The base system prints CMYK at 800-by-800 dpi. But with various options, it is capable of printing up to 230 lines per inch in HiFi color (CMYK + orange and violet). Maximum web width is 13 inches. It can produce roughly 4,000 11-by-17-inch CMYK duplex pages per hour at the equivalent of 144 lpi.

The system uses HP ElectroInk technology. That is a fusion process with liquid inks instead of toner. This, says HP, produces a product closer to offset printing. HP also offers full personalization with all its HP Indigo systems. There is an entire line of impressive systems with various speeds and capabilities, but HP positions the HP Indigo press w3200 as its publication printing system.

https://h30011.www3.hp.com

Agfa Dotrix Press

Agfa, being a veteran supplier to newspapers, may be in the best position to provide a newspaper-centric solution.

Its Dotrix press is completely compatible with its Arkitex workflow software and will be able to integrate easily into any existing workflow when it is released, Agfa said. While the system is already in use for high-end commercial applications, it is not quite ready for producing newspapers.

That’s because Agfa insists that while it is possible to produce inserts and on-demand editions on inkjet stock, newspapers need the lowest cost of production to truly reap the benefits of an added revenue stream. No doubt Agfa will want to test a variety of stocks to cover all possibilities. The Dotrix uses Piezo inkjet technology that can work with either UV or oil-based inks. It uses FM (stochastic) screening and prints 12,000 full-color single-sided pages (8.5-by-11 inches) per hour. Agfa will also offer variable-data printing.

www.dotrix.be

Clearly, it’s time for all out-of-the-box thinkers to start making plans. The technology exists and the capability for producing a myriad of new products is just around the corner.