This year’s edition of Sign and Digital UK saw HP debut its revolutionary PageWide technology for the first time at an exhibition. HP claims that the wide format innovation will reduce the costs of colour printing and significantly increase production due to its superlative speeds, and believes it is set to make waves in the LED printer-dominated production printing market.

“PageWide for large format is the implementation of HP’s thermal inkjet technology in a very new way. We’ve seen a very good response so far. We see great benefits to customers in technical production such as repro houses, corporate reproduction departments, as well as print service providers,” explains Thomas Valjak, HP’s EMEA general manager of large-format printing.

The recently exhibited PageWide XL Series is described as ‘the fastest large-format printing, both in monochrome and colour, and works on a modular four-colour system with more than 200,000 nozzles. PageWide XL 4000 and 4500 are designed for high volume departments such as print corners, printing at 8 A1/min and 12 A1/min respectively. They will both be available from January 2016.

The PageWide XL 5000 and 8000 perform at a speed of 14 A1/min and 30 A1/min are aimed at repro houses and central reproduction departments, with the 5000 available from November 2015 and the 8000 as soon as July this year. The 8000 uses 775ml ink cartridges, with dual supply per colour and an auto-switch function. It boasts eight printheads and a printbar life of hundreds of litres.

HP also introduced its new doubly efficient large-format production workflow, HP Smartstream, with super-fast processing and native PDF management with Adobe PDF Print Engine 3.

The new HP Latex 370 is a wide-format printer designed to be unattended and significantly lower running costs for users with its 3 litre ink cartridges that can change automatically during jobs, and compatibility with the HP Mobile App, allowing users to check printer status from elsewhere and remotely track jobs through to completion.



The Scitex FB550 and FB750 now includes table top roll holders for flexible short runs, a 12 percent speed increase in indoor signage print modes, high saturation in photo print modes, and better image quality reliability due to new beam and carriage.

HP has also introduced the new HP Scitex 1100 Industrial Press, with HP Scitex Smart Coat Technology for increased surface durability and flexibility, and HP HDR250 Scitex Inks for maximum application versatility.

The final big launch in the multitude of new technology is the HP Scitex 15500 Corrugated Press, designed for corrugated converters. The machine features a corrugated grip, along it to print directly onto warped and distorted surfaces, and HP HDR230 Scitex Inks, specifically created low odour inks for high quality digital corrugated printing.

In October 2014, it was announced that the company would separate into two publicly traded businesses; Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, dealing with software and services businesses, and HP Inc, which will be responsible for personal computers and printing businesses, with stakeholders continuing to own shares in both companies. The current HP logo will be retained by HP Inc.

“Our work during the past three years has significantly strengthened our core businesses to the point where we can more aggressively go after the opportunities created by a rapidly changing market,” says chief executive officer, Meg Whitman.

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