manroland Inc.

BY MARIE RANOIA ALONSO The seventh installment of Printing Impressions' ongoing focus on CIP3 visits ScriptWorks RIP manufacturer Harlequin, an early member of the CIP3 consortium. Currently in the final stages of beta testing a plug-in for CIP3's Print Production Format (PPF), Harlequin is working with its team of leading prepress OEMs to navigate the cutting edge of CIP3 developments. FACT: NO longer are components of a prepress environment expected to work as an independent module of a commercial printing operation. Instead, the electronic prepress department is called upon, more and more, to function as the first leg of an advanced digital journey that ends

BY MARIE RANOIA ALONSO The sixth installment of Printing Impressions' yearlong focus on CIP3 activities turns to Agfa Div., Bayer Corp., and the prepress innovator's introduction of CIP3-compliant architecture within its Apogee PDF-based Workflow Production System. Apogee PrintDrive, a multi-page buffer for more than one RIP, is the newest member of Agfa's family of RIPs—and its most innovative workflow enhancement, to date, from a CIP3 standpoint. Currently, Agfa, one of the founding members of the CIP3 consortium, is working closely with MAN Roland and other press manufacturers to define and refine the digital links between prepress and press. Apogee, which comprises the Apogee

When it comes right down to it, savvy, educated print buyers have one sweeping requirement of their commercial printers, expressed here in no-frills vernacular: They want more for less. And, taking into consideration the expert engineering of printing presses on the market today, it's increasingly possible to give them just that. Good news for printing executives who might be poring over product literature, grappling with some tough choices. Printers shopping for web offset presses all agree on one thing: less is more. Less makeready time, less manpower and less paper waste equal more profitability. "Right now, [web printers] are looking for a

The fifth installment of Printing Impressions' ongoing focus on CIP3 activities targets the integration power of MAN Roland's PECOM networking system. PECOM, including the PPI2 prepress interface and Technical Press Preparation (TPP) workstation, links MAN Roland's open architecture CIP3-compliant fiber-optic based Roland 300, 700 and 900 sheetfed and ROTOMAN web presses with other devices. It uses the Print Production Format (PPF) file structure established by the CIP3 consortium. In digital prepress, sophisticated front-end technology obsolescence occurs every 18 months or even far sooner. In the pressroom, however, change is far less accelerated. A printer will buy a printing press and, while digital upgrades and

Be honest. Did you expect WAM!NET and 4-Sight to merge their telecommunication powers under the same banner at Seybold? WAM!NET's bold and beautiful acquisition of the UK-domestic-turned-global ISDN provider was the big news at Seybold New York. Wasn't it the most logical, likely, and yet somehow unlikely, pairing of corporate intentions, philosophies and technologies? Wasn't it just what the commercial printer has been virtually demanding of these two facilitators of digital file delivery? On perhaps a more important note, wasn't it simply surreal to see all those WAM!NET employees in their funky T-shirts standing peacefully, shoulder to shoulder, with the small army of

The fourth installment of Printing Impressions' year-long CIP3 focus profiles the prepress and press projections of Heidelberg—the founding father of the CIP3 consortium. Now, with Delta Technology's PressGate from Heidelberg Prepress serving as a CIP3 enabling tool for the German press maker, the megasupplier is moving closer to automating the print production process from prepress through postpress. If one company needed to embody the objectives of the CIP3 movement—establish and implement a seamless digital workflow from prepress to postpress—it was Heidelberg. The founder of the CIP3 initiative, Heidelberg is the new name in prepress production, as well as an established goliath in the pressroom and

METAIRIE, LA—Greenwich, CT-based World Color Press has begun the new year leaving no doubt that it will remain a force to be reckoned with in the graphic arts industry. The biggest news is its acquisition of Century Graphics, a $128 million offset printer of retail advertising inserts based here. Century ranked 47th on Printing Impressions' recent Top 500 listing of North American printers, and is reportedly the third-largest offset printer of retail advertising inserts in the United States. World Color did not disclose the terms of this latest acquisition, which was to have been completed in February. Under the agreement, World Color acquires Century's

"I feel the need...the need for speed." So quipped Tom Cruise's cocky fighter pilot character Maverick in the action flick, Top Gun. Those same sentiments can be echoed by any commercial printer with medium- to large-sized (for purposes of this article, 26˝ and larger) presses. Except, Cruise's Maverick had it easy—just a few competitors to deal with and only one battle necessary to test his meddle. Increasing customer demands, pricing pressures and shorter turnaround times all combine to put sheetfed owners' metal to the test—on a daily basis. "Large-format sheetfed press manufacturers feel the same price pressures as their customers. Continually shorter run

The second installment of Printing Impressions' year-long CIP3 report profiles the activities of Scitex, most notably its InkPRO, and shares the prepress technology provider's take on full digital workflow integration. At Scitex America, Leigh Kimmelman believes that CIP3, in theory, is conceptually sound in its mission to automate production processes from prepress to postpress. As product marketing manager for output imaging systems, Kimmelman must track CIP3 activities and increase market awareness of the latest Scitex CIP3 technologies. Kimmelman has been one busy guy, as has his CIP3 European counterpart, Les Bovenlander, marketing manager/commercial printers, for Scitex. Bovenlander is instrumental in overseeing the implementation of Scitex's CIP3