The Future of Printing, The End of Paper?

Published by john mce in Technology, 1 month 3 weeks 1 day 3 hours 50 minutes 18 seconds ago

Consumers are becoming spoilt with the quality and quantity of high level electronic printers that are now available from the high-street stores. User-friendly software coupled with affordable advanced technologies is bringing professional printing directly to the customer. As a result the commercial printing sector is taking a significant hit. Individuals and institutions are better equipped these days to do all their printing in-house and can churn out professional looking newsletters, flyers, brochures and posters from the convenience of their own home or office. The need to use a third party print studio to get copies of your holiday photographs or to produce a client report with a perfect finish is diminishing rapidly.

So how will printing evolve? With the proliferation of me media such as smart-phones we should expect to see improved portability for printers. As laptop sales challenge that of desktops and handheld PDA's become increasingly popular the ability to print on the move is very desirable especially for young professionals and all those project managers who can't leave their work in the office. As for the future of professional printing studios, they are going to have to adapt similarly to how traditional journalists have had to adapt to the dissemination of digital media. The digital revolution is drastically altering all major industries. Printers are going to have to become web-savvy, with the skills to design sites, content manage material and programme within the business itself. Without this sort of knowledge and the ability to develop with the technology that rules the industry, the printers will be left behind and ignored.

Digital technologies allow for changes to be made easily and at the last minute. The potential for customisation and personalisation of relevant documents is evident and simply executed as long as the application knowledge exists. So where does this leave paper? Companies, small as much as mega-corporations, are coming under fire for their paper waste. Digital printing is more efficient and a step towards significantly reducing this waste.

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Electronic paper, also know as e-paper is another important development in the industry in regards to corporate social responsibility. There are several e-book readers already on the market, although not in the UK, such as the Amazon Kindle. However does this spell the end of the physical book and paper we are all used to? There's much to be said for electronic paper and ink. It saves the rainforests and is environmentally friendly, but they are unlikely to replace the paper-backed book anytime soon. Reading massive documents from a screen is a burden on the eyes; the glare from the backlit text can strain the reader optically and for many it feels inherently unnatural. Although digital printing is steaming the industry ahead we are still a long way off from the hologram documents dreamt up in Christian Volckman's cyber-punk detective film Renaissance. The writing is not quite on the wall with e-paper.

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