PALO ALTO, Calif., February 08, 2007 – HP today announced Mercury Print Productions, a Rochester, N.Y.-based graphic communications firm, has installed an HP Indigo press w3250 to create cost-effective, high-quality books for the educational market and other publishing industries. The HP Indigo press w3250 enables Mercury to produce textbooks, teacher’s editions, workbooks and other materials for the nation’s leading educational publishers. The press is one of the world’s most productive offset-quality digital color production solutions and offers spot-color printing of Pantone colors using HP IndiChrome off-press custom-mixed inks. The custom-mixed inks enable Mercury to meet important customer requirements that cannot be satisfied with competing digital press solutions. An in-line primer included with the press enables printing on virtually any standard offset paper or publisher house stock. Because the HP Indigo press w3250 can print on stocks as thin as 27 lb text, it is an ideal solution for the lighter textbook stocks commonly used in textbook publishing. “When we launched the HP Indigo press w3250 last year, we were excited about the impact it would have on the book industry,” said Alon Bar-Shany, vice president and general manager, Indigo division, HP. “By enabling the printer to match colors and offer a wide range of papers, the versatility of the HP Indigo press w3250 delivers a competitive advantage to Mercury, increasing the overall value the company delivers to the marketplace while also decreasing the press’ total cost of ownership.” A solution designed to meet the changing times of the publishing industry By providing a new alternative to cost-effectively print different quantities of books in color and black and white, digital publishing is one of the innovations helping advance the publishing industry into the digital age. External influences such as No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation have driven the need for change, with state boards of education and individual school districts now producing their own versions of textbooks to meet specific curriculum needs. Digital color printing enables these books to be cost-effectively produced in appropriate quantities, while HP Indigo technology ensures that the books continue to have the look and feel of offset. For Mercury, NCLB legislation led to the establishment of a separate book division in 2006 following installation of the HP Indigo press w3250. Now, the company serves an educational market that is increasingly demanding digital printing. Earning high grades in color with 50 different custom-mixed inks HP IndiChrome off-press ink-mixing enables Mercury to take advantage of a range of colors that is unmatched in the digital publishing environment. Mercury purchases Pantone-licensed HP ElectroInks in 50 different Pantone colors from the Printing Applications Laboratory at the nearby Rochester Institute of Technology. This capability gives Mercury the power to produce educational materials in two colors as opposed to a costlier multi-color process needed to match specific hues. “In many cases, the materials we print are designed for two-color offset, with different grades of a particular textbook series color-coded by a specific highlight color,” said Christian Schamberger, vice president of operations, Mercury Print Book Division. “Printing digitally using a Pantone color ink – something that is possible only with HP Indigo – is especially important for us. While in many cases it is possible to match these color values in a process mix, the most cost-effective solution for our customers by far is to print these jobs in two colors with a spot-color ink.”