Sowton, Exeter, Devon – 16 September, 2008 – Short Run Press Ltd, one of the UK’s most established short-run book manufacturers, has moved more than 40% of its black and white litho work on to a new digital printing system supplied by Océ, which has tripled digital printing capacity.

 

New business opportunities are being opened up for family-owned Short Run Press Ltd now that tens of thousands of pages a year are being produced on one of Océ’s acclaimed digital book printing systems that has brought short-run mono and colour printing on to a new level of quality.

 

Around a third of all work is being produced digitally by Short Run Press, of Sowton, Exeter, which specialises in academic journals, mainly the scientific and education markets. Three years ago, the digital figure was less than 5% of its turnover. At SRP, more than 250 scientific titles are produced each year alone. The company employs 20 people and has a £1.6million turnover.

 

Pivotal to the success has been linking two Océ printing systems, a mono VarioPrint 6160 and colour CS650, to provide high quality output for all forms of binding. The printers are driven by Océ PRISMA software, which enables the CS650 to pre-print colour pages for the Océ VarioPrint mono machine to intersperse where required and to deliver complete collated book blocks.

 

Mark Couch, Marketing and Sales Director for Short Run Press Ltd, said: “There’s a lot of talk about the e-book and internet delivery but, from our perspective, there’s no sign of that happening, not least because there’s still no computer equivalent to the pleasure of handling a well-bound book. The reality is that there are more books than ever waiting to be published.”

 

“Digital processing is making it more democratic and more versatile, putting high quality publishing within reach of private imprints and specialists who were once ruled out of the commercial marketplace. It’s much easier nowadays for printers to meet demands and to provide shorter runs. The colour capability was also important – journal publishers want colour, but not additional costs. Océ is now stealing a march on the digital book printing industry – and we’re delighted that it has helped to further build our volumes and reputation in the marketplace. Océ has understood our needs and gives great product support as well.”

 

Sof Tsigarides, Océ UK Ltd’s National Sector Manager for digital and graphic arts print production, said: “We spent a long time with Short Run Press to find out its exact needs before recommending a solution. The unique benefits to Short Run Press are the highly efficient production workflow delivered by Océ PRISMA Prepare software.  We are delighted that the link between the two Océ machines – believed to be the first for this type of work – has provided an ideal solution.”