Special Report
For a new market: Canon welcomes hybrid printing
The print industry is becoming more volatile and so the machines must become more reactive to what’s needed. Hence hybrid printers nowadays and with so many already out there, Canon has released its latest machine to tap into this mature market. Assistant editor, Benjamin Austin, reports.
T
he world of wide-format printing is seeing the emergence of a new trend.
As print service providers (PSPs) look to
adapt to the increasingly volatile market, it is becoming more and more important to be able to offer more with less. It is something that printer
manufacturers have recognised, and now almost all of them are offering hybrid models as part of their portfolios. With their capabilities of being able
to produce work as both a flatbed and a roll-to-roll machine, working with rigid and flexible substrates of almost all kinds, they have become a huge benefit to PSPs who may wish to look to diversify without adding several machines to their roster. And now Canon has decided to adapt
to this new configuration with its first hybrid printer in the Colorado XL. The manufacturer is already versed
with the 1.6m market with its Colorado M series of roll-to-roll printers and then covers the flatbed market with its Arizona series, but it is now looking to provide an all-in-one solution with its latest machine.
The new machine Officially launched at Printing United 2025, the company held a webinar event for the Colorado XL, where it highlighted the benefits it hopes to bring to the wide-format market. Mathew Faulkner, EMEA marketing and innovation director at Canon Europe, hosted the event and was on hand to answer questions. He said: “The market is heading
towards hybrid as it is aiming for flexibility and wants to say yes to jobs coming. Whether it’s rigid or roll-to-roll. “The market is surely growing on the
large-format graphics side, and at Canon, we are serving many of them. “There are customers currently active that are looking to make the step up
| 54 | November/December 2025 Canon Colorado XL printer
into higher productivity ranges with the flexibility of hybrid and with the productivity capability of 3.2m, whether that’s speed production or dual-roll printing. “But we recognise this is actually
quite a mature market, and many active customers are using existing 3.2m printers, so with the new Colorado XL series, this is really addressing the wide-format printers looking to make the step up, but also for existing users of 3.2m to invest in the latest version of technologies.” Having a hybrid configuration allows
for greater flexibility in a business’ services. The ability to switch from soft to rigid materials at almost the touch of a button. But multiple conversations Canon
had with customers brought up several challenges being faced in the modern print industry.
More often than not, it is becoming
harder to find skilled print operators, so asking more of the machine to ensure better prints is becoming increasingly important. A lot of major manufacturers are
pushing automation with their latest releases, and now Canon has looked inward to find ways to develop the hardware attached to the Colorado XL.
UVgel technology The company has therefore used it as the first printer with a 3.2m specification to be equipped with the patented UVgel technology. Having debuted the ink with the
Colorado series back in 2017, there has been a desire for the ink to be available in the wider format. Mathew continued: “When we
launched the UVgel tech along with the Colorado, that was in 2017, that was off
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