Printers signal commitment to digital technology

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Nov 15, 1994 by Tim Bogardus

Everywhere you turn, it seems, another printer is announcing another deal with another multimedia developer. In the past year alone, R.R. Donnelley, Quebecor and many others have formed partnerships with or acquired controlling interests in companies that manufacture interactive products. (See "Printers gear up for multimedia push," FOLIO:, November 1, 1994, page 31.)

But these new services are not the only ones changing the way the printing industry does business. Technologies that provide the digital means of producing printed pages are revolutionizing the process, too.

In September, Pewaukee, Wisconsinbased Quad/Graphics bought an equity stake in The Parnau Group, the developer of Impoze software, a program designed to link magazine production staffs to their printing facilities by transmitting book make-up information electronically. Impoze is already being used by magazine publishers such as CMP Publications, based in Manhasset, New York, and Gruner Jahr in New York City, and by printers such as Quad, Publishers Press and Ringier America.

Industry experts say that as more publishers begin to use electronic data interchange to communicate with their printers, programs such as Impoze and others like it will eventually become industry standards, and the publishing process will continue to move toward a completely digital workflow.

The desktop factor

Perhaps the strongest indication of printers' growing commitment to electronic printing was the announcement in September by Chicago-based Donnelley that it had created Digital Division, a new business unit dedicated to the digital production and distribution of information. Just one week earlier, the Banta Corporation, located in Menasha, Wisconsin, announced that it had formed the Banta Digital Group, which comprises the six companies that formerly made up its prepress group.

"Desktop prepress is driving the adoption of these technologies, and they're not going to go away," opines Pat Henry, director of research and development at the National Association of Printers and Lithographers, located in Teaneck, New Jersey. "Printers who want to survive past the turn of the century," Henry predicts, "will invest heavily in digital technology."

A study from Alexandria, Virginia-based Printing Industries of America, titled "Bridging to a Digital Future," that was published last January, states that "by the year 2000, the principal business of [the printing industry] will be the imaging process--that is, the creation, modification, manipulation, conversion, storage, transmission and distribution of electronic images in a wide variety of formats."

Donnelley's new Digital Division, which is scheduled to open its first unit in Memphis in the first quarter of 1995, will incorporate digital production and distribution processes to store customer's files for electronic publication or repurposing, send them to digital platesetters for long-run printing, or send them directly to digital presses made by Xeikon, Indigo, Heidelberg and Xerox for short-run printing.

Laying the digital infrastructure

Mary Lee Schneider, marketing director for Donnelley's new division, says the Memphis facility will be the first of several units around the United States dedicated to the digital workflow.

"We're seeking to lay the digital infrastructure in which our traditional manufacturing processes will move," Schneider says. "Smart printers are going to invest in technologies that help them enhance their core businesses."

As more new units are added to the picture, she continues, a national network will be developed that connects the digital facilities to one another, as well as to a central database, to other manufacturing plants, and to publishers themselves --thus creating, in effect, a national electronic printing infrastructure for Donnelley and its customers.

Schneider says a new printing paradigm is emerging in which information will first be distributed--electronically--and then printed locally, rather than printed and then distributed nationally, which is the current model for most printers. The way she describes it, the new model will provide several benefits for magazine publishers, including the availability of highly customized versions of magazines, reduced cycle time through regional printing, better inventory control, and archiving information for repurposing into other media.

Limited risk for publishers

Banta's Preston Walklet, president of the company's newly formed digital group, echoes Schneider's observations. Walklet says Banta has five units around the country that are already tied into a network for sharing information. IDG, one of Banta's magazine customers, is also hooked into the network, gaining a faster cycle-time as a result. "The ability to do it fast is where the value comes," Walklet notes.

But that's not the only value. Walklet points out that, in addition to speeding up the process, providing digital services for publishers allows those publishers safe access to new technologies without the financial risk of assuming responsibility for failure. "Publishers can use Banta's technologies instead of investing in their own," he states. "We have been asked to go beyond the traditional role of prepress."