As in all families rivalry between siblings can be intense. So too in print where the squabble between direct imaging presses and toner (dry, liquid and quasi liquid) machines is as intense as any other.

　　In the battle to win the hearts and minds of customers the name calling and accusations can be vehement. Both can be perceived as chasing the same short run, fast turnround market. And as this is a market whose value stretches into millions of pounds worldwide, there is a big prize to collect. The fighting is made even more strenuous because the market for highly personalised print, where toner technology is currently unrivalled, has failed to develop as its supporters had hoped it would. The consequence is that these technologies are fighting it out for a share of the short run colour market with added interest coming from the conventional four-colour press equipped with the latest in automatic set up and laser imaged plates.

　　Persistent rumours

　　Both have areas where the other cannot touch them. Firstly toner presses can offer fully every-print-is-different personalisation. DI presses cannot, though there are persistent rumours about link ups with inkjet technologies to offer at least some degree of personalisation. Secondly toner technology is restricted to two pages to view, though again Xeikon's DCP500D can produce a B2 sheet and HP Indigo has shown a B2 press at exhibitions. This is understood to be on the back burner while HP gets to grips with the rest of the company and assesses its future direction.

　　Equally there are myths which cloud the issue. One concerns the way that toner machines have removed moisture from paper leaving it vulnerable to cracking. This is less true now than it was, thanks to better papers and more sympathetic conditions in the latest toner devices like the Xerox IGen3 and Heidelberg NexPress 2100. However, DI presses have the edge in being able to print on the full range of substrates available to the offset printer.

　　By contrast, according to Xerox at least, the print quality from DI is not as good as on traditional presses. Again this is scarcely credible and not supported by samples that can be picked up from press manufacturers.

　　Here is the great divide: DI presses seem to be emerging from the traditional press manufacturers. Hence there are machines from KBA, the B2 and B3 Karat presses; from Heidelberg which has the Quickmaster DI and Speedmaster DI74; Komori the Lithrone S40D; MAN Roland the Digiweb. Others like Adast and Akiyama have flirted with the technology and newspaper press manufacturer Wifag is to build a press with DI units. The toner presses come from companies which have in the past been confined to office equipment, hence Xerox, Canon, Minolta and so on, or from start up businesses such as Indigo and Xeikon. Heidelberg has a foot in both camps with NexPress ranged against its DI presses.

　　In the end the argument will be won not by the superiority of the technology, but by market acceptance. At the end of last year, US consultancy CAP Ventures carried out an intensive study of just this market looking at the cost per copy and relative quality that each type of machine can produce. Its cut off point was a machine capable of printing at 24pp a minute, but because the machine was not properly on the market, it does not include cost per copy and cost of ownership figures for the Xerox IGen3.

　　With any toner engine, the cost per copy is a constant as volumes rise, the cost rises in direct relationship. CAP calculated this taking into account the equipment supplies, makeready and manufacturing cost. It is this constant that lies behind the click charge concept and suggests that there is no makeready involved in setting up a toner press for a colour print job. This is not what users accustomed to running conventional litho presses have found, to their cost when running the paper hungry Xeikon web machine for example. By contrast the cost per copy produced by a DI press behaves like a conventional press, the more copies printed, the less the cost. CAP Ventures puts the cross over point at something like 400 impressions. Beyond that the offset device has the upper hand in cost per copy.

　　On quality too CAP Ventures differs from Xerox in that it rates quality on the 46Karat as 10, on the Indigo machines as 9 and on the IGen3 as 8.5.

　　The market is skewed, however, by the established user base. Where a company has existing presses and a ctp unit, it is unlikely to invest in a DI machine which has multiple imaging heads. Instead a new fast makeready machine is more suitable or a toner product to provide an extra marketing tool. This is an argument that KBA has used to justify the introduction of the Genius52 machine. It has all the attributes of its 46Karat, fast makeready, suitability for short runs and waterless print quality, but lacks the DI heads. Plates will be produced in existing equipment it argues.

　　KBA also points out that the unit press design is not ideal for a DI press as each print unit needs an imaging head. With the common blanket cylinder design of the Karats, one imager can handle two plates, halving the cost. It therefore reckons that the DI presses will perform best where there is no existing printing press, such as a prepress set up or entrepreneurial set up. Words & Graphics, the Ansty user of the UK's first 46Karat typifies one aspect of this in that its only other machine is an Indigo. Dublin prepress house FM2 which also has a Karat shows the other.

　　A rock and a hard place

　　This is also a point that Xerox makes. "DI is caught between a rock and a hard place," says a spokesman. "The rock is equipping a traditional press with ctp, which allows a printer to lower run lengths. The hard place is digital, where the technology is driving up digital's capability to deliver longer run jobs economically."

　　However, there is no question that for a traditional print company there is a problem with payment by click charge. Heidelberg, which has recognised this and does not impose a click charge on its NexPress community, says that in use consumables go further and replacement parts are more durable than first suspected. Stephen Clarke, managing director of Falcon Press, says than running the NexPress without the click charge has proved less expensive that running a similar machine with it.

　　As Heidelberg is uniquely placed to offer any of the technologies, its view is also that toner meets the call for ultra short runs, DI for quality and short print runs. "Direct imaging could have found itself squeezed out by the increasing competition from digital printing below and conventional small offset press running with ctp and highly efficient production-business workflows from above. We believe that DI is a neat solution for those wanting four-colour work as standard in the 500-5,000 run range."

　　There is no question that digital printing is rapidly eating into the simple mostly mono single- and double-page market. The range of inline finishing options makes the Docutech and Digimaster machines suitable for short run bookwork as well and very few if any litho presses are today sold for single-colour work. This is unlikely to be repeated in four-colour work, because as digital raises its game, so conventional litho raises its game with metallic finishes and varnishes, special colours and the like offering something that digital print finds impractical.

　　Where does this leave DI? It is currently confined to its niche, but is finding some heavyweight backing. Ryobi is finding the Japanese market receptive to technology and here Apex Digital Solutions' joint managing director Bob Usher says that the cost per copy argument holds sway from 350-10,000 copies. KPG has picked up on the DI presses in North America and clearly sees it as a vehicle to sell its plate material in the future. However, says Jack Schloff, worldwide staff president of KPG: "Our customers are looking for ways to grow their business and increase their profits. The KPG DirectPress 5034DI allows them to capture jobs they are missing today and cut costs on current projects."

　　Simple to operate

　　More to the point, the DI press is a simple to operate machine, at least as a Karat where the machine is also waterless. It is as close yet as offset has come to push button technology where training requirements are minimal. It is also far more controllable than a conventional machine, hence a project between KBA and Httprint to set up a network of colour calibrated Karats to output jobs on the spot. To date this can hardly be said to have swept the industry.