The digital revolution is here to stay

Our HP Indigo 5500 Digital Press resembles a conventional offset-printing press. There is an image cylinder (like a conventional plate cylinder), a blanket cylinder, which transfers the image to the substrate, and an impression cylinder, which supports the substrate while ink is transferred to the sheet. One big difference is that only one unit does the actual printing. The ink colors are conventional yellow, magenta, cyan, and black, with the option of adding two additional colors. For each rotation, a different color is imaged, transferred to the blanket, and then to the paper. The paper, therefore, makes four revolutions around the impression cylinder. This is very different from conventional lithographic sheet-fed or web presses, which print only one image and one color per unit.

Lange Graphics' HP Indigo 5500 Digital Press can print variable text or images, meaning images, copy, or mailing information can be changed on the fly, and as the job is running. This info is fed in through a data list, usually Excel. This is perfect for short-run targeted marketing, or increasing your ROI with personalized mailings.

The duplexing unit allows for printing on both sides of the sheet during a single pass through the press. The sheet goes into the unit, and the tail is gripped and sent back into the printing nip. The press is capable of printing a maximum sheet size of 12" X 18" and can currently output 500 sheets per hour (four colors on both sides) or 1,000 sheets per hour (four colors on one side).

For short-run color, the print quality on our HP Indigo 5500 Digital Press is very impressive. Since no oils are in contact with the paper, there is no wicking or bleeding of the ink as it hits the paper, as is inherent with wet-ink transfer. Dots show no feathered edges, and there is no mechanical dot gain because the ink doesn't flow onto the paper; it bonds to it. Indigo has taken traditional offset printing to new heights. The digital revolution is here to stay and Lange Graphics continues to lead the way.