Xerox Docucolor 240 papers

[LowCountryPrinter]

Hi,
I am the print coordinator at a small print shop and we are trying to define our house papers for rack cards, and post cards.

After doing some research it seems like non "digital" papers are much cheaper. What is the difference between a digital paper and a litho paper. I understand the HP indigos need a special coating but is that the same for the Docucolor? I know that testing is really the only way to make sure a paper works but I wanted to make sure I was not wasting time or going to cause any damage to the printer by trying non digital papers. So is non digital okay? What is so great about digital papers?

Thanks ahead of time!

-Paul

[Internal_R&D_Analyst]

Dry toner digital presses do not need any special paper like liquid toner/electroInk (HP indigo presses) usually do, (Some non indigo treated papers do work fine on indigo).

Running nondigital paper on a DocuColor 240 should not cause any problems or damage. Some papers may work better then others though, so testing is still a good idea.

Digital papers such a Xerox brand papers are tested to insure they work will with their presses, their paper is not necessary though. Xerox does not make the paper they just rebrand it after their testing, the same paper is usually available under a different brand for less.

[SteveL]

The Xerox machine uses a charge to pull the toner onto the paper you are printing on.

How uniform the surface of the paper is, and how uniform the density of the paper is, affects the quality of the print.
Moisture in the paper also affects how the toner is pulled onto the paper, Xerox digital stock has approximately 4% moisture (when properly stored), offset stock has approximately 3 times that.
Digital stocks tend to resist stretching and deforming better than offset stocks.
The grain direction of the sheet makes a difference to how it performs in the printer, this is not always an issue for jobs run on offset.
The colour management of the printer is set up for a particular kind of stock, with particular characteristics (white point, etc). Using stocks different to those for which it was designed will affect colour.

There's probably more differences, but I'm only on my first coffee for the day

You can run other (non-digital) stocks in the machine, be mindful of not only the grammage but the thickness of the stocks, and I would expect colour consistency, uniformity and accuracy to be significantly different.

[LowCountryPrinter]

Thanks for all the responses. Any idea on the max pts / thickness that a docucolor 240 is supposed to run? I know GSM limits is 300 but that does not take into account thickness. Any idea would be great. Be cause we would like to run a thicker sheet to allow for stiffer b-card, rack cards and such but I do not want to go past the machines limits.
Thanks
Paul

[X33]

What is the difference between a digital paper and a litho paper.

- Price
- Grain
- White point
- Smoothness
- Coating
- Fiber
- Moisture

there's definitely a difference; if there was not, then digital papers wouldn't exist.

use litho paper at your own risk. use digital papers to achieve better results.

[Internal_R&D_Analyst]

You can send in almost any paper to companies like Kodak and Xerox to be certified to run on their digital presses. Kodak does this at RIT, in NY, there is a fee though.

So if you have a litho stock you want to run for a specific reason, pay the price and the digital press manufacturers will guarantee it can be ran through their press.

[Al Ferrari]

You can send in almost any paper to companies like Kodak and Xerox to be certified to run on their digital presses. Kodak does this at RIT, in NY, there is a fee though.

So if you have a litho stock you want to run for a specific reason, pay the price and the digital press manufacturers will guarantee it can be ran through their press.

So if you just pay the price, any stock will be OK. Good to know!

[che.c]

We used to use all sort of cut-rate papers, both supposedly digital and some plain 'ol Litho. Eventually we switched to Xerox papers and haven't looked back. There's a world in difference in colour stability, registration, less jamming, less curling, drums/fuser last longer and everything generally looks better - in short, the Xerox stock makes for a better job.

It's worth the extra cost, especially if you're planning on running the same machine for more than a few months!