There have been some document scanning and storage advancements that might actually help the printing industry.
With more and more businesses investing in scanning documents and making their correspondence into digital publications, Printing Industries of America has been looking at how the printing market could be affected.
Vice president of technology and research Dr Mark Bohan explained that the InterTech Technology Awards are a good indication of what is going on within the industry.
He said that one of the products that really sticks out as having the potential to make a big impact is PDF/VT.
"It’s a new PDF specification for variable and transactional printing. Basically, the applications it applies to are looking at when you’re printing variable data," the expert noted.
"When you’re doing variable, it’s very difficult to get colour management, so PDF/VT is built upon PDF/X-4. It has the full colour management involved with items such as transparency and all that type of thing."
Dr Bohan added that it would normally be used when a person is looking at personalization, as it allows them to proceed quickly.
"One of the other challenges of that is you have to get the whole file, move the whole thing, basically it takes forever. PDF/VT really allows it to use document metadata and that allows you to process it significantly quicker," he claimed.
"It uses caching, which basically will allow you to process files significantly quicker. It’s built on PDF/X-4, which is really the de facto standard for high-end colour."
The specialist added that there have also been large changes in inkjet technologies, with printing firms moving towards a single-pass inkjet, which should increase productivity "significantly".
Businesses operating in the 21st century often need to be able to have publications online and in paper format, so a document scanning service and paper storage are both important for firms looking to grow.
Having documents available online allows colleagues and prospective customers around the world to access your information, making life easier when it comes to promoting your product or service.