By Melissa Donovan
The September issue of DPS magazine looks at the influence of digital printing in publishing, more specifically book block printing using web-fed presses. To round out the article, we asked vendors interviewed to share their digital presses serving this part of the market.
Canon U.S.A., Inc.
The Canon ColorStream series is a family of high-speed, web-fed inkjet printers designed for industrial-scale print applications—including book production, direct mail, and transactional printing. It is one of the most widely used high-speed roll-fed inkjet printing solutions in the book production industry. It’s optimized for both monochrome and full-color applications, offering flexibility, scalability, and quality for short- to medium-run lengths.
The Canon ProStream web-fed series enables ultra-fast production allowing print businesses to move high volumes of work from offset and legacy technologies. Designed for applications demanding a wide color gamut and high resolution image output, the ProStream is ideal for on demand, short runs while providing consistency for long production runs. With a wide range of media capabilities, the ProStream targets publishing, direct mail, and commercial print markets.
Fujifilm North America Corporation
The Fujifilm J Press 1160CFG is a digital inkjet solutions that bring unparalleled precision, flexibility, and quality to book production.
The J Press 1160CFG is a high-productivity, roll-fed solution perfect for book block production. It delivers outstanding speed and quality, making it ideal for short- to mid-runs or on demand workflows. With advanced Fujifilm inkjet technology and water-based pigment inks, it ensures exceptional image quality while maintaining a more sustainable production process.
HP
The HP PageWide T500M HD offers print providers a purpose-built solution for digital book production. The 54-inch, 1000 feet per minute (fpm) speed press, with its use of standard offset media and impositions, enables print book providers to grow their business profitably by shifting seamlessly between analog and digital print lines, reducing paper inventory, and streamlining labor resources.
With readily accessible replacement parts and automated cleaning, maintenance is simplified to allow printers to accomplish more today, and with upgradeable future technology enhancements, businesses can future proof in the face of an ever-evolving market.
Sustainability is paramount in the new press to help book printers deliver on the expectations of the entire publishing ecosystem by eliminating aluminum plates, reducing paper waste at start-up and between jobs with variable cutoffs, and optimizing the factory floor by producing ready-to-bind book blocks, eliminating the need for offset work-in-progress signature transport and storage.
Kodak
Kodak’s highly automated, high-speed inkjet presses are excellent solutions for addressing the challenges of today’s book printing and producing high-quality work consistently and cost effectively at full production speeds.
The KODAK PROSPER 7000 Turbo Press leverages KODAK Stream Inkjet Technology and is the world’s fastest inkjet press, with speeds of up to 1,345 fpm. Its three optimized print modes enable printers to produce any book project with the optimal combination of speed and resolution.
Offering speeds of up to 1,000 fpm, the KODAK PROSPER 6000 Press is a highly dependable continuous-feed inkjet workhorse.
The KODAK PROSPER ULTRA 520 Press, powered by KODAK ULTRASTREAM Continuous Inkjet Technology, replicates offset quality and productivity on the most demanding high-ink coverage applications on glossy papers, at full production speeds of up to 500 fpm.
Koenig & Bauer US
Koenig & Bauer provides industrial-level digital web press solutions for book block production. The RotaJET digital inkjet web printing machine is completely modular and serves a web width ranging from 30 to 88 inches. The installations currently in the field are in the 1-over-1 configuration specifically for highly automated book block production that are directly integrated into web-folding systems. The printing machines are equipped with automatic splicing systems and run with extremely limited manual intervention.
The RotaJET from Koenig & Bauer is an industrial printing machine design unlike any other digital printing solution on the market. The system uses piezo printhead technology integrated with a Koenig & Bauer web handling system from a legacy newspaper design to provide digital printing speeds at up to 900 fpm that provide productivity in the digital space with an open ink strategy.
Screen Americas
SCREEN technology creates new opportunities to use continuous-feed inkjet for high-end publications and digital book printing that were previously impossible. SCREEN inkjet web presses leverage the speed advantages of digital technology while providing opportunities for variable data, full color and different text stocks.
Xeikon
Flagship solutions for book printing are the Xeikon SX30000 and SX20000, both roll-fed duplex digital presses powered by SIRIUS dry toner technology.
They stand out thanks to the following features. True duplex—the press prints both sides in a single pass for maximum efficiency. Offset-like quality, which offers excellent image sharpness and consistency. Substrate flexibility enables handling a wide range of uncoated and coated stocks. The Presses reach up to 404 A4 pages per minute at full resolution.
In short, these presses are built for demanding book production—from high-volume educational titles to on demand, short-run publishing—without compromising on quality or sustainability.
Sep2025, DPS Magazine
