Xeikon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Under the Xeikon brand, Punch Graphix develops, manufactures and distributes high-end digital colour printing systems, the related prepress and operating software, and consumables such as toner. Xeikon thus provides integrated solutions for professional applications in the commercial printing, the document printing market - transactional, print on demand and direct marketing applications - and the industrial market - packaging, label and specialty applications." quoted from Xeikon website.
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[edit] The Machine
The Xeikon printing machines are digital printing machines that produce quality representative of many high-resolution photocopiers and color laser printers. In no manner does Xeikon output match or even rival offset press quality. The predominant industry opinion is that Xeikon's only current competitive edge is form factor. While Indigo presses are ostensibly relegated to a sheet/frame size of approximately 12"w x18"l, the current model Xeikon presses can accommodate a web width of almost 19.7 inches. Industry opinion also suggests that the cost of Xeikon devices are often difficult to amortize in the market niches that they often serve and further that the rumored future introduction of a 4-up Indigo press would represent the immediate market death of this legacy technology.
[edit] Digital Technology
Digital technology prints documents directly from electronic files to paper, or any other substrate for that matter. And herein lies the major difference with the traditional (offset) printing process: a number of expensive and time-consuming intermediate steps, such as plate imaging and mounting, have been omitted.
[edit] Other uses
Other than the time required in preparing a digital document to be printed, there are no film or plate production costs involved in the digital printing process, enabling cost-effective, high quality, and shorter print runs. Digital printing also allows form as well as content of each consecutive print to be different. Only digital printing technology can therefore respond to the ever increasing demand for real personalisation and customisation of printed matter. Hence, digital printing opens up possibilities for real Print on Demand (POD), i.e. providing customers what they want, when and where they want it.
Competitors to the Xeikon Print Engine include Kodak Nexpress, HP Indigo Digital Press and Xerox IGen3.
