FREMONT, Calif. - EFI™, a world leader in customer-focused digital printing innovation, today announced the launch of a new line of Fiery digital print servers driving two new families of Ricoh® digital presses that were announced earlier this week. EFI and Ricoh have collaborated again to deliver high-performance Fiery digital front ends (DFE) for enhanced productivity, streamlined operation, superior image quality and optimal workflow connectivity.

Making their debut this week at GRAPH EXPO 14 in Chicago, the EFI Fiery E-43A and E-83A DFEs drive the new RICOH Pro C7100X series of production color printers, and the Fiery E-43 and E-83 DFEs drive the new RICOH Pro C9100 series of production color systems. Both Fiery server pairs are powered by the new Fiery FS150 Pro server platform. RICOH Pro series printers with the new Fiery DFEs also have just received Digital Press System Certification from IDEAlliance offering users a rigorously tested and verified level of color, print imaging and production capabilities.

"We are excited to further build upon our partnership with EFI to offer powerful production workflow tools and enhance our users experience with the winning combination of our newest digital presses and robust Fiery technologies," said John Fulena, Director, Ricoh Production Printing Business Group, Ricoh. "Fiery is the premier DFE platform for commercial digital print, and with this new product launch, we are offering customers the expanded functionality they need, along with the added flexibility to configure and scale digital print workflows based on their specific requirements."

"EFI and Ricoh collaborated in the development of these products to ensure seamless support for all of the new RICOH Pro C7100X features such as its white or clear toner fifth station. In addition, we added the Dynamic HD Text & Graphics feature, one of many that have helped to define Fiery DFEs as the market leader," said John Henze, vice president of marketing EFI Fiery. "We are pleased that Ricoh has chosen to launch these new digital production color systems exclusively with the exceptional speed and performance of Fiery technology."

With the new Fiery E-43A and E-43 DFEs, demanding production environments can take advantage of a lower cost of entry while still reaping the benefits of a Fiery-powered workflow for exceptional color quality and operational efficiency. High-volume printing environments with higher production capacity requirements can choose to use the top-of-the-line Fiery E-83A and E-83 servers, which incorporate the Fiery HyperRIP technology. With HyperRIP, users can better address the growing market for variable-data personalization with a technology that delivers significantly more processing power.

EFI's innovative Dynamic HD Text & Graphics feature, which is standard for the Fiery E-83A and E-43A DFEs, prints sharp fine details, small font size text and ultra-thin lines, plus it reduces the jaggedness associated with half-toned, non-saturated objects on both black and color elements. The DFEs also feature specialty color support for the high-gloss clear or white toner 5^th color station on the RICOH Pro C7100X series. Users can easily manage 5^th color toner options to add dimension and produce higher-value impactful prints with images that pop.

Industry-leading functionality

More than a DFE, Fiery is known for its many industry-leading capabilities, including:

• Consistent job management across all Fiery Driven™ printing devices using the latest version of EFI Fiery Command WorkStation®, the powerful, intuitive job management interface that lets users manage them locally or remotely from a single user interface.
• Best-in-class color and imaging with Fiery Spot-On™ for spot color emulation, Image Enhance Visual Editor for automated image correction and the powerful prepress software Fiery Graphic Arts Package, Premium Edition that comes standard with Fiery E-83A and E-83. Produce color-critical jobs with confidence and achieve consistent color precision with the optional Fiery Color Profiler Suite.
• Workflow Automation tools such as Fiery Hot Folders, Virtual Printers and server presets that come standard with these new servers and increase operational efficiency by automating a variety of processes and creating custom workflows.
• Integration with EFI MIS and other leading workflow offerings. Fiery JDF implementation connects EFI MIS solutions and Fiery-enabled solutions to enable job information to move through production systems faster and more efficiently. In addition, the services integrate with solutions such as RICOH TotalFlow^® as well as other popular prepress workflows.

To meet the high demand for personalized printing, both the Fiery E-43A/E-83A and E-43/E-83 servers support all leading industry standards for variable data printing (VDP) and offer VDP capabilities starting with the integrated Fiery FreeForm™, an entry-level VDP solution that doesn't require specialized software applications.

Both EFI Fiery E-83A driving the RICOH Pro C7100X series and Fiery E-83 driving the RICOH Pro C9100 series are being presented in the Ricoh booth #1931, this week at Graph Expo in Chicago.