Xeikon's Newest X-800 Digital Front End Features Adobe Mercury RIP Technology

EEDE, The Netherlands—June 8, 2015—Xeikon, an innovator in digital color printing technology, today announced that the newest version of its X-800 digital front-end (DFE) incorporates the latest RIP technology available from Adobe and supports the Adobe Mercury RIP Architecture. This enables digital printers, whatever their specialty and however complex their jobs, to process their print jobs in the fastest, most flexible and secure manner possible.

"We are delighted that our collaboration with Adobe has resulted in the Xeikon X-800, version 4.0, now fully Adobe certified for the Mercury RIP Architecture," commented Jeroen Van Bauwel, director of product management at Xeikon. "Passing the rigorous qualification process is an important achievement, and we are pleased with the recognition from Adobe that our workflow is tuned for optimal efficiency and performance. The Xeikon X-800 4.0 DFE will bring added value to a wide range of customers, from label and packaging converters to customers with high-volume data throughput requirements, reducing the amount of job preparation time required for even the most complex work."

Making complex tasks faster and easier
The release of the Xeikon X-800 4.0 DFE offers special advantages for complex tasks such as those involving multiple transparent print layers; high-level security and brand protection features that demand the highest-possible resolution; and sophisticated variable data work.

Mark Lewiecki, Adobe senior product manager, outlined the benefits of the collaboration between Xeikon and Adobe. "The Mercury RIP Architecture will dramatically raise productivity levels for Xeikon customers running high-volume Variable Data Printing (VDP) jobs," he said. "This will enhance the value of the PDF Print Engine, which is the number one imaging technology in the graphic arts. The Mercury RIP Architecture is a scalability platform which takes full advantage of multiple CPU cores in modern servers to accelerate overall job throughput in print production workflows."

When the Adobe PDF Print Engine[1] is configured in the Adobe Mercury RIP Architecture, a wide variety of print jobs on all of Xeikon’s digital presses—from documents to labels, folding cartons and other packaging applications—will benefit from streamlined processing time in generating ready-for-print bitmaps. The processing of jobs, pages or complete signatures occurs in parallel, and can be load-balanced to ensure that no CPUs are idle while files are waiting to be rendered. Mercury can be configured to dynamically allocate some CPUs to a rush job, while other CPUs will continue to work on processing the routine work.

Complementary Technologies
The advanced capabilities of the Mercury RIP Architecture complement Xeikon’s X-800 unique built-in metadata module, which enables variable data jobs to be defined entirely on the press. To enable tracking of production from print to delivery or to prevent counterfeiting, the X-800 allows the dynamic addition of production data or other variable elements such as sequential numbers or barcodes to already RIPped documents. The X-800 also features automatic printer calibration, density control and registration adjustments for excellent color stability and consistent output quality, and even allows post-RIP color adjustment during printing, minimizing downtime while offering great flexibility in ensuring continuously consistent quality.

Long-Standing Partnership
"We value our long-standing partnership with Xeikon, which pioneered digital printing more than 20 years ago," Lewiecki added. "We welcome Xeikon’s continuing leadership, demonstrated by its early adoption of the Mercury RIP Architecture in version 4.0 of the Xeikon X-800 DFE."

Van Bauwel, concluded, "We are convinced this update will be very well-received by our customers. In today’s increasingly complex and highly demanding environment, printers and converters of all types are working with more complex jobs, a growing amount of variable data and the need to ensure the highest resolution for accurate production of security and brand protection features. With this release, and the Adobe certification, Xeikon remains in the forefront of the digital printing world it pioneered, providing our customers with the latest technology to ensure optimum productivity, profitability and flexibility."

The Xeikon X-800 version 4.0 update is available at the end of this month to all current Xeikon press owners and will be incorporated in all new press shipments.

For more information about the Adobe Mercury RIP Architecture, visit the Adobe website.

For more information about the Xeikon X-800 digital front-end, visit:

• X-800 for labels
• X-800 for folding carton
• X-800 for document and commercial

About Xeikon
Xeikon is an innovator in digital printing technology. The company designs, develops and delivers web-fed digital color presses for labels and packaging applications, document printing, as well as commercial printing. These presses utilize LED-array-based dry toner electrophotography, open workflow software and application-specific toners.

As an OEM supplier, Xeikon designs and produces plate makers for newspaper offset printing applications. Xeikon also manufactures basysPrint computer-to-plate (CtP) solutions for the commercial printing market. These proven CtP systems combine the latest exposure techniques with cost-efficient UV plate technology, high imaging quality and flexibility.

For the flexographic market, Xeikon offers digital platemaking systems under the ThermoFlexX brand name.

ThermoFlexX systems provide high resolution plate exposure including screening, color management, as well as workflow management.

All the Xeikon solutions are designed with the overarching principles of profitability, quality, flexibility and sustainability in mind. With these guiding principles and a deep, intimate knowledge of its customers, Xeikon continues to be one of the industry's leading innovators of products and solutions.

[1] The Mercury RIP Architecture is based on the Adobe PDF Print Engine, the next-generation rendering platform, optimized for end-to-end print workflows based on Adobe Portable Document Format—for more details, check the Adobe website.

Source: Xeikon.