Canon Celebrates Ten Years of Sheetfed Inkjet Heritage

Canon begins its celebrations of a decade of excellence in sheetfed inkjet printing, marking both its technological innovation and its unmatched expertise in deployment, integration, and support.

Under the campaign theme ‘Progress Powered by Passion’, Canon is commemorating its journey from launching the first B3 sheetfed inkjet press, the pioneering VarioPrint i300, to setting the de facto standard in sheetfed inkjet production with its market-leading varioPRINT iX3200.

The campaign will also highlight how Canon’s long experience in sheetfed inkjet – and even longer in continuous feed – has created a service and support ecosystem that ensures customer success.

With more than 700 sheetfed inkjet installations globally, Canon has developed industry-leading expertise in every aspect of digital print integration.

A team of over 2,400 specialists across EMEA combines deep technical knowledge with practical business transformation and operational production experience, delivering comprehensive solution design, project management, colour, media, and workflow consulting, business development and support services.

The success of Canon’s sheetfed inkjet technology is best exemplified through its transformative impact on customers. VistaPrint, owned by Cimpress plc a global leader in mass customisation, strengthened its partnership with Canon in 2020 when its Venlo, Netherlands facility invested in its first varioPRINT iX3200.

As print technology continues to evolve, this partnership stands to support faster delivery, fewer manual touchpoints, improved digital workflows and, above all, consistently high quality that inspires VistaPrint’s customers.

Therefore it’s key to be able to count on valuable partners such as Canon.” 

This sentiment is echoed by ProPack Limited, where the implementation of the varioPRINT iX3200 has delivered significant business benefits.

James Clough, Managing Director, ProPack, comments: “The Canon varioPRINT iX3200 has allowed us to be more competitive with elements of new business that we couldn’t win before.

ProPack’s Business Development Director, Nicola Cummins, particularly values Canon’s commitment to ongoing support: “Previous manufacturers will complete a deal and then move on, but with Canon we speak every single week.

Canon’s success in the sheetfed inkjet market builds on its twelve-year leadership in continuous feed inkjet technology and long experience in highly reliable sheetfed media handling and printing.

This combined expertise has enabled Canon to realize its vision of merging inkjet technology’s high productivity and cost efficiency with the flexibility of sheetfed printing, creating solutions that complement traditional offset printing and facilitate the transition of shorter runs to digital production.

Technologies for the outputs of tomorrow With a focus on high-value applications, the Canon varioPRINT iX3200 prints in 1200 x 1200 dpi at up to 9,120 SRA3 images per hour and more than 4500 SRA3 4/4 per hour, with a duty cycle of between one million and ten million A4 images per month.

Delivering an uptime of over 90%, it can print on a wide range of media and features proprietary iQuariusIX ink and printing technology to deliver high output quality, achieving a 91% reproduction of Pantone spot colours, which has been verified by certifications from Fogra and Idealliance.

Engineered for high quality, productivity and flexibility, the production capacity of the B3 sheetfed inkjet press Canon varioPRINT iX1700 – which will be available later this year – will range between 300,000 and 1.5 million A4 images per month, and has a new set of inks and printheads, enabling it to produce high-quality print applications such as marketing collateral, books and demanding business communication applications.

Meanwhile, the new varioPRESS iV7 B2 sheetfed inkjet press, which was unveiled at drupa 2024 and will be available later this year, will be able to produce up to 4.5 million B2 images per month.

Delivering unprecedented levels of productivity with more than 8700 B2 4/0 per hour, the press has been engineered to enable customers to easily meet demanding service level agreements and turnaround times, while cutting costs and boosting efficiency.

Canon’s long experience and continuous innovation in printhead and ink development, media handling, drying and fixation technologies delivers consistent, high quality and detailed output with a broad colour gamut throughout its portfolio and across a range of applications.

Jennifer Kolloczek, Senior Director, Marketing & Innovation, Production Printing, Canon EMEA, says “This year, we celebrate our heritage and success in digital printing.

As a global leader in sheetfed inkjet production print, we have been at the forefront of this technology since 2015, and we’re still just as passionate about it.

Over the past ten years, hundreds of print service providers have built and continue to build their business with us, thus far printing more than 66 billion A4 images on our sheetfed inkjet presses worldwide and placing Canon at the forefront of the ultra-heavy production B3 segment in EMEA.

“We have lived and breathed and proved the power of digital sheetfed inkjet and we’re proud to work with customers that push us to innovate harder and test the boundaries of what’s possible in production print technology.

  

This year, as we celebrate ten years of sheetfed inkjet innovations, we’re excited to showcase and celebrate some of those partnerships at Hunkeler Innovationdays 2025 and inspire the print pioneers of tomorrow.

Our extensive range of professional services and printing solutions, encompassing both toner and inkjet technologies, represents the industry’s most comprehensive portfolio and uniquely positions Canon to address the requirements of print service providers across the spectrum, while delivering superior technology, exceptional service, and unmatched expertise in applications and operations.”