Océ Writes the Book on Digital Printing with ‘Roll Over Gutenberg’
As a result, stakeholders across the supply chain, including book printers, publishers, sellers, authors, self-publishers and even consumers, are realizing the benefits of digital technology. With digital technology, printers and publishers no longer have to print long runs to reduce unit costs. They can print ultra-short runs profitably, reducing production and transaction costs while expanding market opportunity and improving margins.
By printing books on demand or in shorter, more frequent runs, publishers can reduce overruns, minimize risk, improve cash flow, breathe new life into backlist titles and print advance reader copies at a fair price, while minimizing environmental impact. Furthermore, they no longer have to maintain unwieldy inventories and can eliminate the costs of managing returns and write-downs. Booksellers can offer a larger catalog of books for immediate delivery, providing readers with more choice and authors and self-publishers with new opportunities to see their works published. In short, digital technology delivers quickly, with high quality and a relatively low unit cost and the benefit of reduced or no inventory.
As it explores the state of the art of book printing and publishing today, “Roll Over Gutenberg” touches on key trends and issues like these. From an examination of the impact on various stakeholders and case studies of book printers and publishers who are using digital technology to “green” book production and the democratization of the book, “Roll Over Gutenberg” provides a window into the opportunities made possible by digital technology today and a glimpse of emerging innovations for the future.
As a thought and industry leader in the fast-developing field of digital book printing and publishing, Océ is demonstrating live production of “Roll Over Gutenberg” at drupa. The book is being produced in an automated digital production workflow that merges color and black and white pages inline from a cutsheet system. The book combines prints from two digital printing systems—the Océ VarioPrint? 6250 single-pass duplex system and the Océ CS650 Pro color printer. The near-perfect registration of the Océ VarioPrint 6250 system delivers perfectly aligned text blocks on every page of the book, ensuring that quality standards are always met. The Océ CS650 Pro system is known for its outstanding color on a variety of media. The process is controlled by Océ PRISMAprepare™, a software solution that enables end-to-end workflow management from pre-press to production. Océ PRISMAprepare software separates the monochrome and color sections of the book, ensuring that page data is routed to the appropriate printer. The software then controls the post-print merging to reassemble and finish the book.
