Xerox Offers Color Print-on-Demand Printing System

Posted on May 13, 2002

Xerox Corporation has announced its latest digital printing system that allows publishers and book printers to produce books with color on every page in very short runs. Introduced at BookExpo America, the Xerox DocuColor Book Solution consists of the Xerox DocuColor 2060 Digital Color Press and book finishing, software and professional services. Xerox has been heavily promoting its on-demand printing technologies and has been running television commercials depicting a classroom where students are discussing how to get material published.

On-demand book publishing is also known as print-on-demand or POD, for short. Xerox says on-demand printing allows publishers to print short print runs of less than 2,000 copies and keep up with demand for out-of-print, backlist, and specialty books. Xerox began offering on-demand printers in 1990 with the DocuTech Production Publisher and has been steadily adding new features.

"We are convinced that on-demand publishing is, and will continue to be, one of the strongest growth areas for digital printing. Color books is a natural extension of our successful track record of black-and-white books on demand, which started with the DocuTech Production Publisher in 1990," said Elaine Wilde, senior vice president, Xerox Worldwide Graphic Arts Business. "We are generating more than $150 million a year with our digital book solutions, and last year alone we estimate Xerox customers produced more than 20 million books."

The heart of the system is the Xerox DocuColor 2060, with a print speed of up to 60 pages per minute, matched with the Creo Spire CSX2000 Color Server -- a workstation that processes print files. The solution's software provides PDF book file input, full color management capabilities and flexible color book production workflow tools. Depending on the configuration, the Xerox DocuColor Book Solution starts at $200,000, including hardware, software and book enablement kit.