Abstract

The digital printing sector is becoming more and more prominent in the printing industry and yet there is no defined standard to evaluate the quality of the printed work provided by digital presses. The IDEAlliance Digital Press System Certification Program aims to provide certification to presses which have consistently demonstrated the ability to meet certain printing tolerances as outlined by certification. A test has been designed using test procedures and tolerances from this certification program in combination with custom ones to evaluate the Xerox 700, a press which is considered to be certified. This test aims to see if certain aspects of its certification can be repeated and to evaluate the overall consistency the press by comparing printed characteristics to tolerances outlined by IDEAlliance, GRACoL printing tolerances, and the manufacturer’s specifications. The main parameters evaluated were solid ink densities, color difference using the CIEDE2000 equation, front-to-back registration, and color-to-color registration. In the end, the data showed that the Xerox 700 was able to reproduce and meet IDEAlliance and GRACoL’s tolerances in regards to color difference, color-to- color registration, and solid ink densities respectively. The press’s front- to-back registration however varied drastically throughout the press run and often bypassed the tolerance that the manufacturer had set for its own printer.