A Cautionary Tale

Still, the savviest book printers are growing “by choosing their markets and customers carefully, and by investing in highly productive technology. Those with older technology will die soon, very soon.”

Recent innovations—such as computerized press presetting, automatic quality monitoring and closed-loop color control—have been critical in opening up new opportunities for web and sheetfed printers, as well as in controlling costs and extending offset’s range well down the run length ladder, Holliday says. He adds that computer-to-plate technology also has facilitated the development of presses with very-large format (VLF) configurations capable of high page counts, shorter run lengths, and of boosting VLF offset’s competitiveness against gravure.