A Very Brief History of Digital Printing

Introduced in the early 1990’s digital printing revolutionized the professional printing industry and made short run projects more cost effective. A “greener” alternative to offset printing because of the elimination of the printing plate and the reliance of traditional printing inks.

Digital printing comes in many forms from the simple ink jet printer found in most home offices to the ultra high tech digital presses introduced as the future of commercial printing. Digital printing in essence refers to methods of printing a digital based image directly to a variety of media. Digital printing has a higher cost per page than more traditional offset printing methods but this price is usually offset by the cost saving from eliminating the need for lithographic plates . It also allows for on demand printing, short turn around, and even a modification of the image (variable data printing) with each impression.

Although digital printing is in its infancy, there is no doubt that the commercial advantages will propel the advancement of this technology to continue to increase quality, speed and cost.

Uses For Digital Printing

At Marine we make the most of the current print technology to offer our clients the most cost effective printing solutions for their needs. We use a toner based system that allows us to compliment our offset services and give our customers the benefit to choose based on the needs of the project at hand. A few of its common applications include: Business cards, posters, reports, flyers, business forms, on-demand publications and variable data printing.