Though web-fed presses have traditionally been of the offset variety, digital web-fed inkjet presses are becoming more popular. A web-fed digital press prints continuously on large rolls of paper that unwind as they’re fed into the machine. The large roll is not cut into individual printed sheets until the print run is complete, which is part of the reason why web-fed digital presses can operate at much higher speeds than their sheetfed counterparts.
“This makes them more cost efficient to run, and that can result in savings for you,” write Gooding and Schilling. “However, web-fed presses can only handle one paper at a time, so they may not be as cost effective for a design that uses more than one stock.”
It’s important to note that not all paper stocks are manufactured in roll form, which means there may be some limitations as to the kind of paper you can specify for a web-fed press. Plus, the continuous print nature of a web-fed inkjet press makes it less compatible with heavier papers.
The ability to print from a large roll using one type of stock at a given time and the increased efficiency makes web-fed presses ideal for larger scale projects, like trade publication books, magazines, manuals, and direct mail, so long as it’s a large quantity job.
