POD market continues to grow: with mounting pressure from digital printers and their clients, paper companies are adapting to the needs of the growing print on demand market.

To the uninitiated, the phrase "digital paper" seems almost like an oxymoron. Yet to papermakers marketing products for use in "print on demand" applications, the term conveys an important message to potential customers: we understand your needs and we are here to meet them.

The print on demand process (POD) uses digital printing technology to streamline document production. Conventional offset printing relies on film, plates, and press make-readies, which results in a high set-up cost that must be balanced with longer press runs. With (POD), document information is stored and printed digitally, making it affordable to print much shorter runs and easier to print additional quantities as needed.

Digital information can be easily updated and customized, making POD ideal for manuals, instruction booklets, multi-language documents, and personalized promotional material. For customers using POD, cost savings include reduced inventory costs, less waste due to obsolescence, and better cash-flow management by printing large jobs over a longer time frame.

Though the offset market is still dominant, its growth has been arrested by the downturn in the economy. The POD market, however, continues to grow, according to CAP Ventures, a strategic consulting firm for providers and users of digital business communication technologies and services headquartered in Norwell, Massachusetts. (See Fig. 1.)

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As economic pressures make the POD process more attractive to an increasing number of print buyers, print providers are expanding their capabilities by increasing the installed base of digital printing devices and more aggressively marketing digital services. The printing industry in general has been proactively working with paper companies to develop papers that respond to the demands of the digital equipment and the unique needs of POD customers.

Digital processes include electrophotography, inkjet, electrocoagulation, magnetography and iconography, which use both rollfed and sheetfed technologies. The processes work with a range of substrates that includes plastic films and even credit cards, in addition to specialized papers and cardstock.

Both technical and practical considerations contribute to the characteristics required by paper stock for POD applications. For instance, because roll-fed digital processes involve high heat, toner cracking and curl can be problems. Since the electrophotogaphic process requires papers to be charged and discharged to attract and adhere toner to the substrate, the paper must not be allowed to build up charge independently, requiring digital papers to have much lower moisture content than offset papers. Sheet uniformity, gloss, and formation are also more important when working with digital toners. Because POD is ideal for manuals, directories, and promotional mailings, customers have been clamoring for digital papers with lighter weights and greater capacities.

According to Noel Jeffrey and Liz Fedorowicz, editors of the bi-monthly magazine Print On Demand Business, digital papers have continued to become more of a "mainstream product." In its July/August 2001 issue's roundup of new specialty substrates, the magazine profiled products from Domtar Communication Papers, Georgia-Pacific, International Paper Commercial Printing Papers, Neenah Paper, and Mohawk Paper Mills.

"We talked to the people who buy and print on digital paper and learned that, from New England to Nebraska, things are indeed looking up," Jeffrey and Fedorowicz wrote. "Not only are there more suppliers involved, but also choices that printers have requested for years are now available at more reasonable prices--diversity at last."

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For more information about this focus topic, try these websites:

Cap Ventures www.capv.com

The Distal Printing Initiative (PODi) www.podi.org

Print on Demand Business Magazine www.podb.com

StoraEnso's Digital Papers minipage: www.storaenso.com/4cc