Web Offset Presses -- Spinning a Better Web

Paper costs will also have an impact on this printing segment, Gustafson predicts, and there could be a shift in cutoff sizes in the future, as well.

"We started seeing this several years ago when some large gravure pieces were converted to heatset offset," Gustafson recalls. "We should continue to see more, since much of the 21˝ cutoff equipment in the U.S. is more than 20 years old. A lot of this equipment was stretched from 46˝ to 54˝ and rebuilt one or two times already, so the life cycle is getting near its practical end, in some cases."