CHICAGO, IL - Ask Sue Mills how she got involved in the printing business and after 20 years, you learn about some funny stories. But if you ask her how she and her print shop, Safari Graphics in Pocatello, Idaho, are doing since purchasing the new A.B.Dick CXP3000 direct-to-print system, she can provide you with plenty of answers. Mills and her husband of 38 years, Lyle, moved to Pocatello in 1994 after selling East Bench Printing in Ogden, Utah, which they had owned for 10 years. Montana was a con- sideration since Lyle hunts (hence the Safari name), so they settled on Idaho. The majority of the shop’s quick printing is two-color, but the Mills wanted to get into more four-color work they previously outsourced. When talk with an A.B.Dick sales representative turned toward affordable four-color options, a trip to Chicago introduced them to the CXP3000. “We’re saving thousands of dollars a month by doing it ourselves with the CXP3000,” said Mills, who oversees office responsibilities for the eight employee shop while Lyle, a well-regarded jack-of-all-trades, takes care of the printing side of the business. “Since in-stalling it in mid-February, we do at least 20,000 impressions per month. We expect this end of the business to increase this summer.” What makes Mills so optimistic is the startling difference between the CXP3000 and the Canon color copier it replaced. “The CXP3000 is faster, more reliable and produces better color with sharper text and resolution. The quality is outstanding. We have printed some jobs that we never would have attempted with the Canon because of quality concerns.” Safari Graphics does a wide range of work for an eclectic roster of customers in a city of 50,000 people. Working with credit unions and medical offices to local television stations and the State Health Department, Mills said they are using the CXP3000 for brochures, color business cards, flyers and newsletters. The average job size is 500 to 1,000 impressions, but a recent newsletter called for an 11,000 run and a nearby Indian reservation was more than pleased with the outcome of its 11” x 17” poster. “The CXP3000 gives us a lot of freedom. I like that it automatically duplexes the sheets, something the Canon copier did not do,” said Mills. Speed is another favorable issue with Mills, who finds the S300 Fiery RIP to be everything as advertised. The EFI Command WorkStation allows for push button ease and accuracy with its centralized print job management operation and customization options. The Fiery RIP, which operates on Windows XP, contains a 2 GHz processor, 512 MB of RAM and a 60 GB hard drive, and serves as a strong platform for variable data printing. “This system makes our shop more productive and gives us another tool to keep our customers satisfied and coming back for more work,” said Mills.