Auburn University’s all-digital CopyCat operation just bought a Xante Ilumina Digital Envelope Press and will now print Auburn's envelopes.

Auburn University’s stationery and envelopes had always been printed on offset presses. The very suggestion of printing them digitally brought deep frowns to the faces of university officials. But that didn’t stop Glenda Miley, manager of the Alabama university’s all-digital CopyCat operation, from trying.

“I was trying to find another source of revenue for us and I hit on that,” she says.

She had seen the Xanté Ilumina Digital Envelope Press at an In-Plant Printing and Mailing Association conference once and was certain it could provide the quality and consistency that the university demanded. The only problem was, her shop didn’t have one.

Still, Miley convinced the university to let CopyCat bid on the contracts for envelopes and letterhead, promising that the shop would add the digital press if it won the bid. She submitted samples printed by Xanté on university envelope stock. In the end, against great opposition, the in-plant won the bid for envelopes.

“We are about to be the sole printers of the #9 and #10 one-color and two-color envelopes for the entire university,” says a triumphant Miley. “We broke through the barrier of thinking that this has to be done on a press.”

Based on the winning bid, the in-plant installed a Xanté Ilumina Digital Envelope Press in late March. Miley has been more than satisfied.

“It does a wonderful job,” she enthuses. “We’re just highly impressed with it.” The quality is great, she says, the speed is fast (40 ppm for monochrome) and envelopes come out flat. With a feeder that can hold about 500 #10 envelopes, the operator can get it started, then move on to another task, she says.

To make sure that Auburn’s official orange and blue colors were consistent between envelopes, business cards and stationery, the winning bidders for these last two items were sent samples of envelopes printed on the Ilumina so they could match them.

Miley—who is hosting the Southeastern University Printing and Digital Managers Conference (SUPDMC) at Auburn from October 10-14—says the digital envelope press will save the university even more money by printing mailing addresses on envelopes at the same time as it prints the Auburn logo.

The Ilumina can also be useful for other projects, she adds. The shop has already used it to print a 13x22˝ banner.