Sheridan is excited to announce a new feature enhancement to Sheridan SelectTM, offering publishers multi-volume set support for print-on-demand books. Sheridan Select has been simplifying publishers’ production workflows for over a decade, be it through fully-automated data integration, or a simple, easy-to-use web portal to upload files and place orders. This new feature enhancement gives publishers the ability to identify, upload, store, order, and print sets or collections comprised of multiple products with ease. This feature is available in both the fully automated and self-service models of Sheridan Select for print-on-demand books. It supports member products (i.e., child ISBNs) to be ordered independently, or as part of a collection (i.e., parent ISBNs). If desired, the ability to turn on or off member product independence is also available. For example, “If a set is defined as volume 1, volume 2, and volume 3, Sheridan Select has the ability to control whether each individual volume can be ordered by itself or not as defined by the publisher,” comments Eric Biggins, Sheridan’s Director of Customer Technology. “The rollout of this latest feature is just one more way that Sheridan continues to streamline publishers’ workflows and bring efficiencies to their businesses.”

Electronics For Imaging, Inc. announced the availability of a new EFI™ Fiery® digital front end (DFE) for the Xerox® iGen® 5 Press. The Xerox EX-P 5 Print Server Powered by Fiery first made its debut at PRINT 17. The new Fiery DFE supports the iGen 5 Press' new White Dry Ink capability, and is the first commercially available DFE on the new Fiery FS300 Pro platform. "We believe the new capabilities with the Fiery DFE will be a significant asset to our customers, especially as it relates to optimizing our fifth station options," said Ragni Mehta, vice president and general manager, Cut Sheet Business, Xerox. "This partnership with EFI will allow Xerox to capitalize on the ability of White Dry Ink and other specialty colors to increase the breadth of applications that can be produced on the Xerox iGen 5 Press." Click Read More below for additional information.

Enormous cost and competitive pressure, as well as the increasing difficulty of recruiting suitable personnel on the market, are driving the printing industry. An additional challenge is the fact that printing companies now have to generate a significant portion of their revenue, which they previously achieved with high-volume orders, through a large number of small orders. With conventional working methods, it is difficult to manage such an order structure economically. The solution is the consistent digitization and automation of as many processes as possible, as well as the increased use of robotics to reduce manual intervention to an absolute minimum. These topics were addressed at SHIFT 2025, a new two-day event format organized by Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (HEIDELBERG) featuring external speakers on the one hand and interactive practical workshops on the other. More than 200 guests from all over Europe and overseas attended the summit. Special attention was paid to hybrid print production with Speedmaster technology on the one hand and digital printing with Jetfire 50 and Versafire systems on the other. The focus was on fully automated workflow control via the new Prinect Touch Free workflow. The AI-supported software guides an order independently and without human intervention through the entire manufacturing process, always taking into account the most cost-effective production route, available capacity, the current order backlog, and delivery dates. Prinect Touch Free is scheduled to be available from the end of 2025.