Predictably, the just-closed Printing United Expo in Las Vegas was a place for those with an interest in newspaper production to network, rather than see new kit.

And one of the few pieces of web-fed equipment, the Neolt Jumbo Unwinder was there to feed a latex printer – HP’s R530 – rather than an inkjet web.

With Jeff Bezos’ “new” Dulles installation currently building on decades-old hardware – albeit underpinned by state-of-the art control technology – you’re going to have to face up to the reality of probably never seeing an offset newspaper press in a trade show again.

Instead the three-day Vegas show offered an update on digital print, an option being increasingly taken up by smaller newspapers in the US, attracted by its flexibility and logistical advantages.

And small was beautiful, Xerox delivering the 8.5-metre-long Proficio Jet CF1200 inkjet (top), which claims to be the ‘smallest 20-inch (51 cm) press in its class’, but still good for between four and 30 million pages a month at up to 160 mpm. Both Xerox and HP had new workflow and optimisation software to show at an event which seemed to grab every available opportunity to spruik the ‘AI’-word. Watch out for Xerox locally too, with its return to the APAC market following the end of the Fuji joint venture in 2021, as well as its return for next year’s Hunkeler Innovationdays.

Hunkeler, of course, has been part of Müller Martini since late 2023, and the Swiss bindery systems maker’s north American president and chief executive Andy Fetherman was seen at the show wearing the logos of both companies. MM showed its new Separo PRO (above) – which separates pre-glued, thread-sewn and loose-leaf book blocks – live and inline with a Vareo PRO perfect binder as a demonstration of how it can “drive the digital transformation”.

Innovationdays is also probably where you’ll see serious Kodak inkjet kit, perhaps reprising its performance last year, at which it showed how the 410 mpm Prosper 7000 Turbo could effectively match the frame-rate of a film clip and two music videos that had been shot on Kodak film, simulating the effect of a film being projected.

The Prosper inkjets range from 152 to 410 mpm, with the 300 mpm Prosper 6000 optimised for standard publishing/newspaper applications.

In Vegas – and very likely in Messe Düsseldorf’s All in Print China show in Shanghai shortly – Screen was showing its flagship Truepress Jet 560HDX, albeit in a static display. The “extra wide” 560mm-wide, 150 mpm press is reported to be a top seller in the US, with 80 per cent of available machines currently going there.