A new alliance between Kodak and Xeikon enables label printers to extend their web-based businesses with branded online ordering of tags, labels, and other print products. It simplifies and streamlines production, from order origination on the web via Kodak Web-to-Print Solutions, to final output on the Xeikon 3300 Digital Color Label Press. Initially, the agreement is effective in the United States and Canada.
\”The adoption of digital printing within the packaging market is growing, and Kodak is excited to work with Xeikon to bring web-to-print solutions to the tag and label market. Kodak\’s e-commerce solutions as well as our web-based tools for content creation, collaboration and approval connect seamlessly into the production workflow and through to the digital label press,\” said Steve Miller, Product Manager, Packaging Workflow, Kodak. \”Integrating Kodak\’s web-based systems with the Xeikon Press will give label printers the ability to provide new services to existing customers while also attracting new business opportunities.\”
Through the agreement, Kodak and Xeikon, a division of Punch Graphix, bring complete web-to-print solutions to the packaging and label market by offering Kodak Web to Print Solutions and the Kodak Insite Prepress Portal Product family as part of a complementary solution to the Xeikon 3300 narrow-web digital label press. The system offers label printers tools which they need to support online ordering, including a brandable web storefront for secure online ordering of print products. The storefront functions can be completely integrated into the prepress workflow to create an automated production process from order to output in digital, offset or flexo printing environments.
Streamlined production also is aided by the Kodak Smart Review System, which can be used with a variety of file formats and brings together a set of professional proofing and collaboration tools, including an easy-to-use navigation window, densitometer and measurement tools; on-the-fly panning and zooming; image rotation; and approval.
The Xeikon 3300 Press delivers seamless high-quality label printing, offering true 1,200 dpi at four bits per spot. With speeds of up to 190 m (63 feet) per minute, the Xeikon 3300 is particularly suited for short to medium print runs and just-in-time jobs. The fifth color station of the Xeikon 3300 Press can be used for spot colors, as well as \”one-hit\” opaque white and special security toner. Xeikon’s Form Adapted toner technology has been approved for use in certain food contact applications.
Xeikon’s collaboration with Kodak is not without irony, as Kodak’s arch-rival Agfa was one of the founders of Xeikon in 1988, when it started out as a small developer team in a factory hall just a stone’s throw away from Agfa headquarters near Antwerp, Belgium. In the early 1990s Agfa marketed the Chromapress with a Xeikon engine, but withdrew from the business when Xeikon slided into financial troubles before it was taken over and saved by Punch Graphix. Punch Graphix, however, still has a longstanding OEM agreement with Agfa Graphic Systems for the production of the :Polaris and :Advantage CtP devices, among others.
