CHICAGO, June 20 -- The New York Times has started printing its national edition in Europe. Readers in Britain have had access to the latest news from The New York Times for the first time on a daily, Monday through Saturday basis, thanks to Oce and its Digital Newspaper Network. In a ground-breaking deal between the newspaper publisher and the digital newspaper printing specialist, Oce has been contracted to supply the European market through Stroma at Wembley, Oce's print partner in west London. Copies of The New York Times -- printed on newsprint to give the same look and feel as its offset cousin -- are being produced daily by Oce Digital Newspaper Network for distribution in Britain and further afield into Europe. The newspaper data arrives within a PDF in London at 4.15 a.m. Distribution of the copies is arranged by London-based distributors FocusMedia starting at 6 a.m., enabling the editions to be on sale on the same day of publication in London for the first time. The New York Times and Oce first worked together last summer when The New York Times was digitally printed in Athens during the Olympic Games. That project proved very successful with strong demand and sales. Following this success The New York Times has been investigating the potential to use digital printing in other locations around the world, London being the first of these. Marc Z. Kramer, senior vice president of circulation at The New York Times said: "We were very pleased with the results in Athens and that gave us the confidence to put this new agreement in place, providing our readers in London more timely service and wider availability. We are very excited by the possibilities that digital printing offers us." Tim Venediger, head of Oce DNN, said: "We are focusing strongly on areas that are of strategic importance to publishers, where digital production technology can make a real difference through adding value to publishers' businesses. Working with The New York Times to begin production in London has been a most informative process for us, and we are certainly very pleased that we have been able to meet the high technical and quality standards set by them." Oce opened its first worldwide print site at Stroma in May 2001 when Danish publisher Borsen and Swiss-based Neue Zurcher Zeitung began printing digitally, taking more than 11 hours off the time it took to produce the titles previously. Since then, across a number of sites, Oce has digitally printed editions of newspapers that have included the Financial Times, the Guardian Newspaper Group, the Sydney Morning Herald, Nikkei, Asahi and other American newspapers.