Westmont, Illinois - MAN Roland has enlarged the format of its 64-inch ROLAND 900 XXL, equipping the press to increase the page count of its signatures from 40 to 48 pages. The 20 percent increase in output makes the enhanced system the industry's most productive press in this extra-extra-large format range. "Those addition eight pages will be an enormous gain to printers involved in signature work," says Yves Rogivue, CEO of MAN Roland Inc. "By being able to produce more on every sheet, they'll be able to be more cost competitive and achieve higher profits on the jobs they print." The new higher output ROLAND 900 XXL was created by expanding the 7B format, which accommodates 40 landscape-oriented pages, to 7B-plus, which can carry 48 portrait-oriented pages. That productive feat was accomplished by adding 2.35 inches of printable image area using the press' existing plate. This image area has increased from 46.85 X 64 inches to 49.2 X 64 inches. Because the plate size remains unchanged, existing platesetters can be used for processing. That means printers can move up to the more productive format without investing in a new CTP system. Bindery compatibility also is assured. What's more, by making more productive use of the sheet, the new format will allow printers and their customers to reduce their paper costs. The reason: while the page output from each sheet increases 20 percent, the overall sheet size, or paper usage, increases by less than 5 percent. In addition to the expanded 64-inch format extra-extra-large press, MAN Roland offers a 73-inch ROLAND 900 XXL that produces 64-page signatures. The ROLAND 900 is also offered in 51-inch and 56-inch versions. "Gaining the ability to produce more on every sheet is the reason printers turn to these larger presses in the first place," Rogivue says. "So it's safe to predict that our new 48-page ROLAND 900 XXL soon will be the industry leader in the 64-inch size."