Digital Papers--Made to Order
BY ERIK CAGLE
Selling paper for the on-demand digital printing environment is even more lucrative than hawking millennium wares. But long after the last can of Spam has been devoured from Y2K survival kits, the market for digital printing grades will be bustling.
The growth of digital printing, a process that envelopes entire workflows, has been well-documented, and paper mills and their distributors are continuously jockeying to reap the benefits of this constantly growing niche. Choices abound, calling for a sophisticated and calculated approach to choosing the bread for your digital printing butter. So many choices, so seemingly little difference among them.
Robert Hieronymus, market manager for imaging papers at Georgia-Pacific, feels the paper characteristics most sought after can be traced to color laser printers and copiers, which fueled demand for smooth laser papers with high whiteness characteristics.
"Printers now have the option to produce short-run promotion pieces either offset or on digital laser equipment, and both technologies coexist in many commercial print shops," Hieronymus maintains. "Demand is growing for higher basis weights, very smooth text and cover grades to support the high-resolution capabilities of the new digital laser equipment. Printers are also placing greater emphasis on paper products that work equally well in both offset and laser printing applications, to help minimize the number of grades they need to carry."
Georgia-Pacific unveiled its Microprint Technology Papers more than five years ago to address the emerging technology. The company uses feedback from OEMs and customers to tweak products, adding basis weights and sizes to existing offerings while adding new products to back specific applications. The company also unveiled Quantum Digital Opaque for the digital laser environment to complement its Quantum Opaque offset printing grade.
"We believe the main growth segments of the paper industry, for at least the next five years, are tied closely to the growth in on-demand printing," Hieronymus says. "As OEMs continue to refine print quality capabilities of their equipment and printers continue to create applications, growth demand will be highest for papers supporting these digital technologies."
Mohawk Paper Mill's digital papers were the result of an existing product line—in this case, five products—being repurposed for the digital printing platform. According to Chris Harrold, manager of Mohawk Digital Papers, with many traditional printers making the switch to digital, the manufacturer wanted to leverage product identity.
Launched in 1998, Mohawk Digital Papers enjoyed double-digit growth early on, backed by the familiarity of established lines such as Navajo and Superfine.
"Customer expectations for color printing are driving demand for high-performance papers," Harrold says of Mohawk Digital Papers' support of the Heidelberg Quickmaster DI line and devices with Xeikon-based engines. "Quality formation, smoothness of surface, brightness, the way a paper feels—these are all measurable characteristics that have led to our success. We've been able to stay ahead of the field by increasing the size of our R&D department. We've invested time and effort into looking at new equipment in the queue and tweaking our digital papers to meet demand."
Harrold says the electrophotographic imaging environment should have a hand in dictating the future direction of digital papers. "There will be a number of changes in the years ahead," he claims. "Keep in mind that the model for copying is a commodity model, and the model for color digital printing is a quality model akin to offset lithography. Users are gravitating toward the quality mentality, which is a trend that bears following."
Xerox also offers a wide variety of products for the color and black-and-white printing environments, both in rollfed and sheetfed formats. Its lines include Bright White, Ultra White, Super Gloss and Digital Laser Opaque. According to Steve Simpson, worldwide manager of product planning and development for Xerox Supplies Group, as on-demand printing grows in the 21st century, his company anticipates customers will require digital printing substrates that have the look and feel of offset materials.
"It is our intention to provide a full range of substrates for digital printing that are relevant to the applications our customers are printing," he says. "Coated papers for brochures, opaques for manuals, and smooth, bright white stocks for annual reports are good examples. As more applications are produced digitally, the variety of paper grades developed and optimized for digital printing will continue to expand."
Likewise, Sappi Fine Paper has an extensive line of papers to address digital printing. Its SPectraTech Coated Papers feature five different grades: Lustro Laser, Opus Gloss, Opus Dull, Recycled Gloss and Recycled Matte. Opus Dull and Opus Gloss are aimed at offset presses, while the other three thrive in volume copiers, color copiers, high-volume and desktop laser printers.
