Countdown conundrum The clock is ticking but just how far in advance of a show on the scale of Drupa 2008 is it practical to plan your trip itinerary? With exhibitors dribbling out information about product launches right up until the doors open, the next few issues of OneStop will keep you up to speed with what to add to your list of must-sees.

If you want a bed within an hour’s travel of the Düsseldorf Trade Fair Centre during Drupa you will have it booked up. But when it comes to what you actually want to see once you’re in the hallowed exhibition halls it’s self-defeating to draw up a list this far in advance – but we can you get started!

With over 1,800 exhibitors it pays to start thinking about what you want to achieve from your visit this early on. You’ll be one of more than 400,000 expected visitors to the event which this time around runs from 29 May to 11 June. Spread across 19 halls, Drupa 2008 will be bigger than ever before so the more pre-planning you can do the better. Use Drupa’s own website (www.drupa.com) to get the ball moving – it’s informative, updated regularly and is a painless route to buying discounted tickets (Euro 37 instead of Euro 55 at the showground).

This magazine and sister publication Image Reports also has a website dedicated to the event (linked at www.onestopmag.co.uk) on which you will find news and rumours of the new products that will be on show, plus the business trends that will be a major theme. You might also consider calling the BPIF to book a place on a half-day seminar it is running on 2 April in Daventry to help you plan your visit. It will highlight key trends and developments.

In following issues we will look more closely at the various visitor programmes developed to help you get the most from the show – these include guided Highlights Tours, of which there are ten options ranging from workflows and Web-to-print solutions through offset and digital printing to packaging printing and finishing. English language versions will run daily and there will be a maximum of ten people on each tour which will visit between six and eight relevant exhibitors. If you book in advance (at www.highlightstouren.de) you will pay five Euro’s less than the full price of Euro45 at the Highlights Tours stand at the fairground.

If you’d rather go it alone make a note to visit the Drupa innovation parc (presented by HP in Hall 7) which is a forum for innovative new technologies. With more than 3,300m2 of floor space and 160 exhibitors in eight different sections, the ‘dip’ spans workflow, publishing, PDF, XML, etc. as well as cross-sectoral topics and the ‘JDF experience parc’. Levels 7.0 and 7.1 make up the "innovation hall" with eight different themed exhibition areas. Seven of the parcs are located on the ground floor – where you’ll also find the dip-stage and dip-lounge - while the jdf-parc (including the presentation stage) will be on level 7.1.

The Compass Sessions (organised by the German Printing and Media Industries Federation) may also be worth considering. Nearly every day from 9am – 11am in the Congress Center Ost, international speakers will provide the low-down on current trends. Sessions consist of four half hour speeches and there is simultaneous translation into English.
Visit: www.compass-sessions.de

5 Things for your Drupa list

Ricoh Pro C900/C900s
Hall 9, A60 (and InfoPrint Solutions, Hall 9, B44)

According to Ricoh the production printing market will grow to €12.8 billion by 2013 and to make sure it becomes “a leading force in the market by 2010” the company will introduce two colour digital printers at Drupa: the Ricoh Pro C900 and C900s (the latter with scanning capability). The sheet-fed machines are expected to compete with the likes of the Canon C7000VP or the Konica Minolta C5000.

The new Pro C900 and 900S have been developed in-house, out of the former Hitachi Printing Solution stable which Ricoh acquired in 2004. Designed to be very user friendly, with many customer-replaceable parts and media and toner replacement on the fly, these machines will deliver up to 90 copies per minute - even on heavy stock weights up to 300gsm. Duplexing also takes place at full speed.
The printers accept SRA3, with up 11,000 sheets (80gsm) in the input trays. Ricoh says output will be at a “true 1,200 dpi” and that a newly developed toner will provide a wide colour gamut and fusing at lower temperatures so that a wider range of stocks to be handled.

In-line finishing options will include ring and perfect binding units, plus the Plockmatic BK5010 booklet maker and the GBC Stream Punch III punch. An EFI Fiery Rip comes as standard.

Kodak Stream Concept Press
Hall 5, D01

The Kodak Stream Concept Press will no doubt garner plenty of attention and Kodak expects it to serve as an entrée into continuous inkjet printing for commercial printers that produce monthly page volumes of 10m or more and want to bring the benefits of digital print (such as variable data, short run, personalisation or versioning) to jobs traditionally produced using offset presses.

This full colour continuous inkjet technology has a resolution exceeding 600dpi and production speeds over 500fpm. In addition to the new Stream Inkjet Writing System, the Stream Concept Press will use pigment-based inks for good colour saturation and permanence (many colour continuous printers are limited to printing on uncoated paper stock with dye water based inks or higher cost inkjet coated substrates).

A new series of S-Class branded Nexpress Digital Production Colour Presses will also make their debut at Drupa. The new S3000, S2500 and S2100 provide up to five-colour printing at speeds ranging from 2,100 - 3,000sph (or 70 to 100 A4ppm). Modular features of the new presses include input feeder options with up to 11,000 sheet capacity, collation capability of up to five different media, and both cut sheet and roll fed paper on the same press. With these presses comes new security features, such as Magnetic Ink Character Recognition. There’s a choice of front end systems and output options include an inline or near-line bookletmaker. A near line Nexglosser glossing unit can also be added. Nexpress S-Class Presses can be upgraded onsite to add colour imaging units and input/output options, as well as to increase output speed.

If you run a Kodak Nexpress M700 watch out for new inline input and output accessories, which include: a Feeder Module to increase the press’s capacity by 4,000 sheets; a Finisher that can stitch documents up to 100 sheets thick; a Booklet Maker to create saddlestitched booklets up to 80 pages; a Booklet Trimmer; Puncher; Cover Inserter; and High Capacity Delivery.

As for CTP devices, Kodak will unveil its fastest yet – the Magnus 800Z Quantum, which can image up to 60 eight-page plates per hour. When used with Kodak Thermal Direct Non Process Plates it produces 35 plates per hour.

Workflow-wise keep a lookout for new features and functions to Prinergy. System 5.0 allows you to process static and VDP jobs through the same workflow, manage end-to-end colour on multiple devices, and automate complex routines in print production workflows.

From Kodak POD comes a new generation digital front end architecture for its Creo Color Server range, to be called Nuevo Technology. The Creo Color Servers are front ends for digital production printers and compete with the EFI Fiery range. Nuevo Technology has a new scaleable and parallel Rip architecture to manage variable print jobs and drive them up to 1,000ppm.

EFI Fiery XF
Hall 5, C01

Designed for printers of wide-format signs and displays comes EFI’s Fiery XF for increased productivity. According to Stefan Spiegel, general manager, Graphic Arts Solutions, EFI: “By switching to Fiery XF, users can get the best possible output from their wide-format printers from the likes of Epson, HP, Mimaki, Mutoh, Roland, and EFI’s Vutek solutions.”

Based on EFI’s Colorproof XF and Bestcolor technology, Fiery XF provides intelligent Clean Color and Full Gamut Technology for improved print results in cross-platform applications. Fiery XF’s colour management also has a Full Gamut profile to exploit the maximum colour gamut of many printers.

To maximise productivity, Fiery XF also includes: multitasking capabilities that allow Rip-while-print, printwhile- profile and profile-while Rip; a Proofing Option to proof to international standards (this feature offers full Mac OS X support for client and server); a Monitor Profile Selection tool that turns every client workstation with a calibrated and profiled monitor into a soft proofing device; and a full set of production tools for the wide-format market, including step and repeat, tiling and nesting for printing various files, file formats and colour spaces simultaneously.

Fiery XF is available in three versions - Essential, Advanced and Premium.

Xerox 650/1300 Continuous Feed Printing System
Hall 8b

If you are hoping to capitalise on the high-speed, highvolume monochrome printing market take a look at the Xerox 650/1300 which can print up to 1, 232 duplex A4 images per minute. The system uses dry toner, xerographic imaging and flash-fusing technology – a process that does not use heat or pressure or make contact with the paper, allowing the device to print on a substrates from 60 - 200gsm.

Maximum resolution is 1200 x 600dpi and an optional Xerox FreeFlow DocuSP print controller is also available. Xerox’s patented Print Line Management helps operators view, manage and respond to every component in the print line from any print engine’s touch-screen interface. The system also features a wide print web that enables flexible imposition.

The Xerox 650 prints on one side of the sheet while the the 1300 is duplex (the numbers refer to the approximate speed in terms of US standard-format pages per minute).

While you’re at Xerox keep a look out for the following: updated iGen3 software; new inkjet printheads and inks; and a new colour technology that at this point in time the company is keeping under its hat but promises to show at the event. And if you want a demo of digital and offset operating in union the Xerox stand will have a Heidelberg press running side by side with the Xerox digital printer.

Dalim Dialogue
Hall 9, C44 (and Drupa Innovation Parc, Hall 7)

New features to Dalim Dialogue, the stand-alone SWOP certified monitor-based proofing application running on the Mac OS X , include text extraction, the ability to highlight text when viewing a proof on a monitor, and cutting and pasting that text with edits into a comment. Unlike many monitor-based proofing systems that show a page as a rasterised image, text is demonstrated as a vector component which saves the review time as they do not have to retype copy that requires changes. This feature is also available for all 2-byte/Kanji fonts.

Also on demo will be Dalim Mistral 3.0 production automation and project management/job tracking system which will include a Publishers Production Flatplan, specially catered to non-technical users for faster approval of pages. Other new features will be revealed at Drupa.

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