What is the HP Indigo Press?

The HP Indigo Press 5000 uses a type of electronic printing that evolved from electrophotography and offset printing. It combines the technology of digital data, laser imaging, and traditional offset printing.

HP Indigo digital printing is known as “Digital Offset Color” and it is used in many printing markets – short-run color printing, book publishing, packaging, and personalizing brochures for target markets, to name a few. The press is designed for run lengths of 1 – 3,000 impressions and can print 1 – 7 colors on each side of a 12″-x 18″ sheet in one pass through the press.

The HP Indigo Press 5000 resembles a conventional offset printing unit. 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 sheetfed or web presses, which print only one image and one color per unit.

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 1,000 sheets per hour (4-color on both sides) or 2,000 sheets per hour (4-color on one side).

For short-run color, the print quality on our HP Indigo Press 5000 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 you can choose to “digitize” or “fossilize”.

Broudy Printing offers on-demand digital printing in small to medium runs, all with the quality of commercial offset. Utilizing the innovative print technologies of the HP Indigo Press 5000digital press, our clients realize faster turn-times and lower costs.

On-demand digital printing allows you to print only what you need when you need it, taking the guess work out of inventory forecasting and management. With on-demand printing, you can reduce the amount of inventory you keep on hand, eliminating obsolete, out-of-date materials and in turn improve your bottom line.

Additional Benefits:

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  • Rapid turn-times
  • Short run friendly (order as few as 1 sheet)
  • Printing resolution of 800 dpi
  • Prints 8,000 12 x 18 sheets per hour
  • Prints on a wide range of specialty substrates – papers, transparencies, labels, plastic card stock
  • Prints up to 11″ X 17″ + Bleeds

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Variable Data Printing

Broudy Printing also offers variable information printing with the HP Indigo Press 5000, providing true one-to-one marketing solutions. With the ability to merge variable text and graphics, we can digitally print and design the ultimate full-color marketing piece directed to specific individuals. By uniquely personalizing and customizing your marketing literature, you can target individuals and businesses based on desired criteria more effectively leveraging the value of your advertising and marketing dollars. Variable information printing allows you to reach your customers, prospects, and other audiences through materials that convey a truly individualized look and language.

The HP Indigo Press 5000 is capable of high-performance variable data customization for just about any type of printed product. You can target one specific client or 500 different clients by mixing fixed data content with customized variable imprint data that allows you to personalize anything from direct-mail pieces, menus, labels, brochures – all quickly, easily and more cost-effective that ever before. Here are just a few of the possibilites:

Direct Mail

Mailing lists are becoming more specific in their target areas. In the past, a mailing had to cover an entiry ZIP code to reach a target customer. Now, with computerized demographics, direct-mail lists are far more accurate and smaller than ever before. TheHP Indigo Press 5000 can quickly and accurately address each mail piece “on the fly” – no matter what the quantity is, making short-run targeted mailings much more affordable and profitable.

Calendars

The 11″ X 17″ tabloid format of the HP Indigo Press 5000 is perfect for many different calendar applications. You can use a single sheet for the entire year, 2 months per-sheet front & back or a single sheet for each month. You could even hand a client a calendar that is customized with their birthdays, anniversaries and important dates highlighted.

Brochures

Your services can be specifically customized for each of your prospective clients with the HP Indigo Press 5000. This is particulalry valuable if you offer a wide range of services. Printing several individual brochures that focus on specific areas is now much more practical with our digital printing technology.