Printing just keeps on changing.

Yesterday I was in our own pressroom, standing between our two newest machines, Canon imagePresses (1110 B/W and the C6000 Color), watching them both crank out some perfect printing. Collating, duplexing, inserting covers, saddlestitching, pulling paper out of multiple drawers, they just ran and ran. They sit in the pressroom, within a yard or two of the offset presses. Over just a few feet stands the old Heidelberg windmill letterpress. The windmill is a mechanical marvel; actually everything in the pressroom is.

Offset was, to letterpress shops years ago, the new kid on the block. Many old printers did not make that leap into offset, and they faded away. Digital has been around a long time now; some printers haven't embraced this technology - I can't imagine why. The quality is there; both of our new Canons deliver offset-quality output. Labor-saving finishing options on the digital machines alone would, in my mind, justify having digital in our arsenal. Collating, saddlestitching, on and on. It truly is amazing what these machines can do.

Larry, our electrician, was charged with the task of wiring the new beasts. To our surprise, we had to find new transformers and a place to put them. That's all behind us now. Larry stopped by yesterday while I was out back, and we talked about the machines. Xerography is a new concept in Larry's razor-sharp brain. "Amazing" kept popping out of his mouth as I answered each of his questions: "How does the image get on the paper? Does the drum get physically etched? Does the toner mix somewhere to get all the colors? How does the toner not get damaged before being fused to the sheet? " ... and more. Then we touched on VDP and mailing, and he had to walk away, just shaking his head.

I'm heading back out to the pressroom today. Wonder where we'll be in five years.

Mark