Océ brings full colour to digital newspapers

Poing, Germany,  22 June 2007 — Some of the world's most famous international newspapers, including the Financial Times, have been printed digitally in full colour by Océ. Publishers from around the globe have been impressed by the quality, which is "even better than offset".

Pioneer Océ, the recognised world leader in short-run digital newspaper printing, has completed extensive tests and produced full digital colour copies of the Financial Times, Guardian, Sydney Morning Herald as well as Spanish newspaper El Pais and Germany's Mitteldeutsche Zeitung.
 
The samples were first shown at Océ OpenHouse in Poing, near Munich, Germany, which is Europe's largest annual digital printing exhibition.  

Ian Denhard, the FT's head of logistics, said: "Through its world-acclaimed digital offering, Océ has played an important part in opening up new markets throughout the world for the Financial Times, and has been an integral part of our development strategy for new printing locations. Producing newspapers in colour is another quantum leap forward and, quite frankly, the quality from Océ's digital printing is better than offset!"
 
Each day Océ produces a total of more than 5,000 international editions of around 15 different titles at six separate commercial print sites — in London, New York, Los Angeles, Sydney, Singapore and Zurich.  The newspapers are produced on Océ's latest digital continuous feed technology, such as the VarioStream 9000 series.
 
In addition to the full colour version the next groundbreaking development in the Océ VarioStream 9000 line-up is a system for ultra-productive output, raising the print speed benchmark by over 50 per cent.
 
The digital printing giant also produces 20,000 copies of the Handelsblatt News Am Abend newspaper per day at 26 separate print sites in 14 locations across Germany. The final editorial deadline is at 2pm and special news copies are available at 3.30 pm on Air Berlin flights and on trains of the Deutsche Bahn.
 
Michaela Frisch, international market segment manager for the newspaper industry, said: "Printing in full colour is another massive leap forward for this unique way of producing international editions of some world-famous titles across the world.  Publishers have said that the high quality is even better than offset quality of the originals."
 
She added: "We are focusing strongly on areas that are of strategic importance to publishers, where digital production technology can make a real difference through adding value to publishers' businesses.
 
"Apart from the introduction of colour we're also introducing dramatically faster black and white machines, a development that opens up even more opportunities for publishers. Taking in consideration the progress we are making in technology every year and our intensive work on business models mixed with our six years activity and experience in this market I am very positive about the future outlook for Océ in the newspaper industry. We still have seen only the beginning of what digital print can do for newspapers."  

For further information, please contact:

Nick Gale
Manager Media Relations
Océ Technologies
Tel.: +31.77.359.5628
Email: nick.gale@oce.com