Digital printing has filled a void in our company. It has given us the opportunity to offer our customers a quick, cost effective way to do smaller quantities. We consider anything under a quantity of 5000 to be a good candidate for digital printing. The difference in digital and offset is the inks and the process by which they are printed. Digital printing uses toner based inks. The ink sets on the paper and gives a bright colorful look to the printed piece. Conventional offset uses oil based inks that are absorbed into the paper. If an un-coated paper is printed, the ink color is not as vivid as the ink color on a coated paper, because the ink sets on top of the coated paper and does not have as much absorption of the ink. The appearance of the digital printing, conventional printing on un-csoated paper, and conventional printing on coated paper, all have a different appearance. If a customer orders a smaller quantity and it is printed on the digital press and then decides to re-order a larger quantity that must be printed on a convention offset press, they should not expect the color to look the same because it is a different process. Another thing that affects the look is the opacity of the paper. The opacity of the paper has to do with show through from the front to the back a higher opacity eliminates show through.
Another great feature of our digital press is that we can print both sides with variable data and address for mailing, all on one pass of the press. What does that mean for the customer? It means that, if the press is not heavily booked, we can print, address and mail..all in the same day. Our customers still get the benefit of lower postage because the list has been run through NCOAlink update, duplicates taken out and sorted for postal discounts.
