Neither Down Nor Out

"We are going to see a lot more of PDF," he believes. "It is not expensive, it's an open architecture and there are now a lot of PDF tools that are on the market."

For Heidelberg, the emphasis remains on better finishing solutions in the short term.

"Black-and-white customers are looking for as much inline finishing as they can get. We are putting R&D into additional online finishing solutions," says Blair. "In the long term, I think we will see newer front-end solutions as it relates to variable data, and perhaps even larger sheet sizes."