The evolution of offset printing
And why is this relevant to the troubles at Landa Digital Printing

It might seem a bit strange to have an article on the evolution of offset printing. Still, it’s highly relevant at this moment: it provides some context on Landa Digital Printing gaining and its difficulties in gaining market share. Why? Because the benchmark has moved significantly over the years, both in terms of speed, make-ready times, and quality. As I’ve always said when discussing digital vs offset (or flexo): old technology fights back. Let’s put things into perspective!

CONTENTS: Speed | Makeready | Quality | Cost… | Why is this important? | Updates
Originally published: 05/07/2025 – Last update: 07/07/2025

For this article, I’ve again used Google Gemini to do the research. You can download the full report, including the questions (‘prompts’), here. Below is the summary.

The timeframe I used is the timeframe in which Benny Landa developed both Indigo and Landa Nanography. And there is a specific reason for that: very often, people with a vision or an idea to put a completely new product on the market see a gap. They identify the parameters that should be filled to close the gap and begin working on their solution, the execution of their vision. Which, of course, is good, provided that these parameters and the competition are checked on a regular basis… These also evolve. And some people tend to forget that…

A perfect example is how CAP Ventures, InfoTrends, and Keypoint Intelligence used to present the evolution of the cost of digital printing. Check the graph below. I’ve seen this many, many times at conferences, the first time in 2000. The one below is from 2008. It shows three ‘phases’ for the cost of digital printing, showing the evolution. However, the cost for offset printing remained unchanged. Why? Because CAP Ventures was only focused on digital printing, they didn’t follow developments in offset printing… And offset showed already important efficiency gains in that period. That’s also the reason why, when my full-time job was still in printing, I always kept an eye on the evolution in almost every part of the printing industry. To detect how applications and market segments were moving between different technologies. Remember: most disruptions originate in adjacent fields. And for offset printing, digital is such an adjacent field, but also the other way around…

So, let’s examine how B1 offset printing, the market Landa Digital Printing is targeting, has evolved over the decades. And let’s check that on three crucial parameters: printing speed, makeready time, and quality.

Speed
The oldest data Google Gemini retrieved are not for B1 presses, but for the smaller B2-sized presses. These had maximum speeds up to 11.000 sheets per hour during the 1970s. This increased to 13.000 sheets in the 1980s, 15.000 sheets in the 1990s, and 18.000 sheets in the 2000s. The current maximum speed is 21.000 sheets per hour… To put that number in perspective: that’s almost 6 sheets per second…

For the complete details generated by Google Gemini, please refer to the PDF with the overview.

Makeready
Speed is one thing, but on conventional printing presses, makeready is even more critical. It’s a pain point. And that’s the point where vendors of printing presses have always been pointing to, next to the cost of printing plates. That’s where their advantage is. This is extremely important. Especially since this has evolved significantly over the years… And people who are only focused on digital printing often seem unaware of this…

Google Gemini divided the evolution into four distinct eras:

• The Manual Era (1972 – early 1990s): Hours of Makeready
• The Automation & Pre-setting Era (1995 – early 2000s): Towards Reduced Makeready
• The “Short Makeready” & Autonomous Era (2004 – 2016): Minutes, Not Hours
• The Autonomous & AI-Driven Era (2024): Near-Zero Makeready

What I remembered from my past contacts with printers and vendors was a makeready time of about 30 to 45 minutes in the mid to late 1990s, which is consistent with the results from Google Gemini. It’s in that context that the first digital color presses, the Xeikon DCP-1 and the Indigo E-print 1000, were launched.

But slowly and steadily this makeready decreased, from 30 minutes to 20, to 15. And at drupa 2012 – yes, THAT one – it was reduced to around 5 minutes. That should have been the theme of drupa 2012.

And now? It’s almost instant job changes. Just a few minutes, max. And yes, this level of automation comes at a price (a financial one). Additionally, everything around the press needs to be organized very well to ‘feed the beast’; however, that’s also the case with a digital printing press.

For the full details, please refer to the PDF. 

With all of this in mind, check the following article from WhatTheyThink.com from december 2021, where the graph below was shown.

Added 05/07/2025 – 20.00 CET: It took some time before I could retrieve the graphs below. The first two are from a Landa Digital Printing presention, from December 2015, but I think I already saw these at the launch of Landa Digital Printing.


And here’s a slightly adapted version I’ve created, showing the evolution of offset AND other digital technologies since 2012 / 2015… 

And from the same presentation, here’s where Landa Digital Printing saw its market: from 50 to 5.000 sheets. To get a reality check on that, you might want to read my article on the cross over between offset and digital from almost three years ago…

Added 07/07/2025: given this ‘perfect fit 50 – 5000 sheets, check the following article in Print Matters. It shows a Belgian printer that puts jobs on his webfed press already from 1000 copies – yes, one thousand. The article is in Dutch, but Google Translate will do the job…

Quality
When I look at the discussions on LinkedIn, it’s often about print quality. And from time to time, I hear people claim that quality has declined over the years. So, on this one, we definitely need a reality check. Because quality has also improved significantly. Below, I’m only checking the screening, but also color consistency has improved significantly during this time. Like it or not, print quality has never been this high. Even the free magazines I get in the supermarket. Even the Aldi folders I receive in my letterbox every week. But some people just like to complain… [sigh]

Again, Google Gemini divided the evolution into several eras:

• The Analog Era (1972 – early 1990s): Conventional AM Screening Dominance
  • 1970s and early 1980s: 133 to 150 LPI standard quality, 175 LPI premium quality
  • Late 1980s and early 1990s: 150 and 175 LPI standard quality
• The Digital Transition & CTP Revolution (1995 – early 2000s): Precision in Dot Reproduction
  • 175 and 200 LPI are more commonplace for high-quality
• The Era of Stochastic & Hybrid Screening (2004 – 2012): Beyond Fixed LPI
  • 300 LPI introduced, ‘perceived’ quality in FM screening up to 340 LPI
• Peak Performance & Automation (2016 – 2024): Consistently Reproducing Ultra-Fine Details
  • 400 – 600 LPI possible, although not widely used
  • Modern presses supporting 1% to 99% dots with conventional screening up to 240 or 300 LPI.

This is the conclusion of Google Gemini: “By 2024, the capability to consistently achieve the highest print quality using very fine AM screens (e.g., 240 LPI, 300 LPI) or advanced FM screening is a standard feature of modern sheetfed offset workflows.”

Do the Landa presses match that current offset quality?

Cost…
We also need to talk about cost… Landa Digital Printing presses aren’t cheap. This article says it’s between 3 and 3,5 million USD. However, I guess that the latest and greatest, full option S11P, with 7 colors, would be more expensive. I can’t imagine that the price difference between a ‘simple’ 4-color S10 and a ‘full option’ 7-color S11P would be only half a million US$.

These prices are in the same range as B1 offset presses. But, as shown above, the speed of those offset presses is much higher. With that in mind, let’s go back to the numbers I shared in this article, the one on the ‘world record’ by Simian. They printed 1,33 million sheets in one month. Shortly after I published that article, one of my readers shared a link to another record, featuring a KBA Rapida 106 (a similar-sized offset press). They printed 444.444 sheets in 24 hours. For a more straightforward calculation, let’s round that down to 400.000 sheets per day and say there are 20 days per month. That’s 8 million sheets per month. Which is 6 times as many sheets per month as the Landa press during the world record…

Now, consider the amortization of the printing press, which is a similar investment.

Yes, I hear you: you need a new printing plate for every job. That’s indeed an extra cost. However, for other consumables, the Landa press also features a special belt/blanket. It also uses special inks, which probably aren’t cheap… (you might want to check this old article about that ink price)

And the KBA might have operated with two persons increasing the labor cost, yes, I know.
Update: I just confirmation from someone who was involved in that record (someone who reads my blog apparently 😇): there were indeed two people at the press.

The full cost calculation is, of course, a bit more complicated than this ‘back of an envelope calculation’, but it at least puts some things in perspective.

Why is this important?
If you are a printing company, your income and your future rely on your equipment and how many hours per day it can produce decent output. Putting everything into context when searching for a new printing press is crucial. And not only the context of your old equipment versus that new shiny offering that’s hot in the trade press. Also, the context of the updated version of your old equipment… The examples above demonstrate how offset has evolved significantly. But also the context of other offerings, similar to that new shiny one. In the case of Landa Digital Printing, do you really need that B1 format? Perhaps with your current job portfolio, a smaller press might do the job at a lower cost… Think about that option. Consider the impact of switching to a smaller press size.

When conducting your research, don’t rely solely on overoptimistic press releases and interviews in the trade press. Don’t get overwhelmed by those fantastic demos at trade shows. Check for critical voices. Assess who they are and why they might be sharing critical information: is it someone who has just been fired from that vendor and wants to get even? Or is it a customer sharing his disappointment with how the equipment performs in real life? Or an independent voice like mine, who is taking a critical look at things happening in print, with the intention of helping printing companies advance? (*)

Investing in new printing equipment, especially in that B1 format, is a huge responsibility. We’re talking about a multi-million euro/USD investment. You should not make decisions lightly.

(*) I published my first two critical articles about Landa Digital Printing and Landa Nanography in 2020. If you now Google ‘Landa Nano print quality’, one of my articles appears even higher in the search result list than the Landa Digital Printing website. And certainly with the possibilities of the recent ‘deep research’ AI, you can get a very good assessment in no time. But do ask specifically for those critical voices, otherwise you might only find the overoptimistic information that has been repeated a gazillion times.

For all my articles somehow related to Landa, here’s the full overview.

PS: if you are an editor and want to use this content, please note that I put a lot of time in my writings, even when I use AI in the background. As with all writings: it’s copyrighted material. If you want to republish: please contact me so that we can make a fair deal on payments. If you don’t want to pay me, only a brief summary in one paragraph, plus a link to this article, is allowed.

UPDATE 06/07/2025: On LinkedIn, someone left some interesting information. The person who shared this information, Martin Van Waeyenberge, has a long history in digital printing. He worked for Xeikon, AGFA Graphics, Bobst, and Mouvent to name a few.
His comment: “You’re spot on: make-ready time for B1 offset has shrunk significantly over the years yet that argument barely scratches the surface. The real cost difference is ink and energy.
Offset ink is thick and cheap with industry insiders noting offset inks cost 20–50× less per ml than inkjet inks.
Inkjet (or so called nano-inks) are high-tech and engineered to pass through 1,200 dpi nozzles, driving costs sky-high.
Inkjet presses, especially high-coverage jobs, demand extensive drying energy.
Offset drying energy needs are far lower overall.
Low ink cost + efficient drying = significantly lower variable cost.
Offset remains by far cheaper for per-sheet costs, especially at medium to large volumes or for jobs with high ink coverage.
Inkjet excels at one-off personalization but that advantage is niche. It’s still not the default for mainstream runs. Most print jobs don’t require variable data, and offset remains the go-to for bulk, cost-sensitive orders.
Make-ready time improvements are just the tip of the iceberg. Ink and energy, offfset’s hidden champions, deliver the real cost benefit and the “variable data” pitch hasn’t disrupted volume printing.
So: make-ready time is the shiny toy, but offset’s cost foundation still rules the world.”
And when reading his comment: a few years ago someone shared the energy consumption of a Landa press with me. But since I didn’t find any public information on it, I didn’t publish anything about it, to protect my source. But indeed, the drying of waterbased ink requires a lot of energy.

UPDATE 07/07-/2025: Given the example that John Seymour shared in his comment, I checked something, the lowest number of copies that a specific Belgian printing company prints on one of its webfed offset presses. You won’t believe it: 1000 copies – yes, one thousand. This article in Print Matters has more information. It’s in Dutch, but Google Translate can help you with that…

Related posts:

“We deliver premium quality print, we need 1000 sheets for makeready” – What is your reference? The crossover between digital and offset printing, in real life The Landa S10P World Record:
a closer look at the numbers…