COMMERCIAL PRINTING OUTLOOK — PRINTING WORK TO RUN SHORT

Book page volume currently totals nearly 600 billion pages, but a tiny fraction is currently produced digitally, adds the researcher. Digital production is growing rapidly, at 15 percent annually for monochrome and well above 50 percent for color.

Catalogs are another digital color printing application exhibiting a rapid rate of growth, but from a very small base. Typically, just an insert or wrap is produced digitally to enable customized marketing opportunities.