Consumables-Paper - Digital

BOSTON—05/20/08—Sappi Fine Paper North America today announced the recipients of its 2008 North American Printers of the Year gold award winners. Culled from a field of almost 2,000 entries, the eight gold winners were selected from 48 silver and judges’ winners. The eight gold winners will now compete for the distinguished Sappi International Printers of the Year title to be held in Cape Town, South Africa in October 2008. The Sappi Printers of the Year awards competition recognizes print excellence and innovation for work produced on Sappi papers. Printers may submit entries for any of the eight categories: Annual Reports, Books,

STAMFORD, CT—April 16, 2007—Stora Enso (NYSE: SEO) today announced at the On Demand Expo in Boston, the introduction of Productolith Pts. Digital to its coated digital paper lineup, as well as the expansion of its Futura Laser grade to include matte finish. About Productolith Pts. Digital Productolith Pts. Digital was developed to provide customers the option of high-quality, heavy-weight board for digital offset and production color laser printing that complements the other offerings in the well-known Productolith product line. Productolith Pts. Digital is guaranteed for digital offset and Xerox iGEN3 technologies, and is Kodak NexPress-qualified. It is available in the

PRINTING, AS a craft and industry, is remarkable for the fundamental changes it has absorbed, particularly in the last 100 years or so. As a consequence, printers have become more segmented by process—sheetfed and web offset, gravure, flexo, etc.—as well as application—general commercial, labels, packaging, plastics and more. Digital technology is creating further segmentation while also increasing the potential for confusion. It’s become necessary to talk of print-for-pay versus personal and workgroup printing, along with in-plants and CRDs. Added to this are new designations such as industrial printing, transpromo and even direct marketing firm. Such diversity in the process and industry matters when it

BY MARK SMITH Technology Editor Can it ever be reasonable to have a wholly positive outlook for printing paper? The answer would seem to be "no," at least from the buyer's perspective. Paper is so essential to print that one feels compelled to look for any potential sign of trouble. The cost of being caught short is too high and memories of the bad times (shortages and soaring prices) too lasting not to err on the side of caution. Plant strikes are just the latest additions to the list of reasons for paper buyers to adopt a cautious outlook. Other concerns have been

BY MARK SMITH Technology Editor The end had to come sooner or later. Everyone knew the buyer's market for printing stocks simply couldn't last forever. Eventually, the adjustments made in papermaking capacity by suppliers and increasing demand fueled by the economic recovery had to bring price increases that stick. Paper companies have announced or already implemented price hikes for most grades, and another round of increases may be in the offing before the end of the year. There's little reason to hope for a repeat of 2003, when increases were floated, but never fully implemented or were subsequently rolled back. Perhaps the clearest

BY MARK SMITH Uncertainty and Iraq. In the first quarter of 2003, that's basically all that was needed to be said about the short-term outlook for the U.S. economy and all of its industry segments. In many cases, though, this extraordinary (in economic terms) concern masked underlying weakness in demand. That was true for paper and printing, alike. The new year had been expected to mark a rebound in the paper market. Chiefly because of the aggressive moves made by manufacturers to bring capacity more in line with demand. The problem is, the demand side of the equation hasn't shown clear signs of

BY MARK SMITH Predictions of the paperless office may have lost their edge, but not the threat of a paperless printing plant. One only has to go as far back as 1995 to find the last time some printers were faced with shutting down their presses for a lack of paper to run through them. The buyer's market of recent times saw printers, and their clients, being doubly blessed with a ready supply of paper at historically low prices. Everyone knew it was just a matter of time before the market swing came, though. In the case of paper, the more apropos saying would

BY MARK SMITH For better or worse, the fortunes of printers and paper producers are inextricably linked. If one sees this as an adversarial relationship, then the paper producers clearly are in a defensive position. Printing papers have been on a downward trend for some time and now are at or near historically low prices. Even the mega-deal consolidations among the major producers have yet to have any obvious impact on the level of competition in the marketplace. Lower paper prices are not necessarily good news for the printing industry, so say even those responsible for buying large quantities of it. "We

Like the rest of the business-to-business dotcoms, the online paper procurement segment has seen its share of out-of-business signs in recent months. Still, despite the inevitable thinning of the dotcom ranks, the fact remains that the graphic arts is continuing to move toward e-commerce. By 2003, 30 percent of all transactions for wood, paper or building products will be made online. And that number will rise to an estimated 75 to 80 percent by 2010. Whether you are looking for a marketplace to sell or buy paper, or a supply chain management solution to help you streamline your inventory, there are a variety of