DUSSELDORF, Germany--May 6, 2004-- Pantone, Inc., the global authority on color and provider of professional color standards for the design industries, and Xerox Corporation today announced the details of a joint venture to deliver predictable color reproduction on digital presses for the first time. PANTONE digital chips lets print shop owners and designers establish what PANTONE Colors will look like before they go to press, whether printing to a Xerox DocuColor 6060 Digital Color Press, using an offset printer to reproduce solid PANTONE Colors or converting to four-color process. The new chip book is an extension of the PANTONE Library of fan guides and books, and is the first version designed specifically for digital press simulation to take the guesswork out of digital printing, ensuring client satisfaction. "This is a big deal to the print community. It enables digital printers to better match colors and set the right expectation for our clients, just like offset printing," said John Place, president, Mercury Print Productions, Rochester, N.Y. "It's a great sales tool and will raise the awareness of digital print capabilities with my customers." Predictable Results PANTONE digital chips is a system that includes 1,089 PANTONE Colors, the process color equivalents and how these colors reproduce on a DocuColor 6060 with a Xerox DocuSP front end. It enables a three-way comparison of solid PANTONE Colors to the CMYK process offset printing simulation and the digital press simulation to provide an accurate visualization prior to printing so educated decisions can be made on the appropriate printing method, thus eliminating disappointing results. All colors are presented in a tear-out chip format on coated stock that can be easily attached to artwork so designers, printers and clients have clear expectations of the final printed results. According to CAP Ventures, digital color printing will deliver the strongest annual growth of any category of the U.S. print market through 2007. With strong market potential, the offset printer needs tools to make things simpler and easier and provide consistent results. "Our graphics products traditionally served the needs of the offset print community. The Xerox DocuColor 6060 was one of the first digital production systems licensed by Pantone and PANTONE digital chips is the first time we've developed a product for a digital press," said Richard Herbert, president of Pantone. Herbert continued, "The guide lets designers and print shops predict how PANTONE Colors reproduce on a digital press and which PANTONE Colors can and cannot be accurately reproduced in CMYK -- before going to press. It is truly a valuable tool for anyone using a digital press and we plan to develop new versions of this book for use with other digital presses." "This is a critical new tool to help the creative and design community work together with print providers to produce outstanding color to their customers on digital technology," said Gina Testa, vice president, Customer Business Development, Xerox Production Systems Group. "The reference guide is part of our expanding Profit Accelerator(TM) portfolio of resources, giving customers the necessary tools and support to succeed with digital printing." The Xerox DocuColor 6060 Digital Color Press is engineered to help commercial printers, in-plant printers and quick-print professionals boost revenue by producing customized brochures, one-to-one documents and other print jobs on a wide variety of paper stocks with outstanding image quality. The DocuColor 6060 is part of the successful DocuColor 2000 Series of entry-level digital color presses, where Xerox has achieved 10,000 installations worldwide, bolstering its No. 1 market share position in digital production color printing. The digital color press prints 60 full-color pages per minute or 3,600 images per hour and offers resolution of 600 x 600 pixels per inch with a full eight bits of color depth per pixel. A PANTONE digital chips book will also be produced and available in the near future for the Pantone licensed Xerox DocuColor iGen3 Digital Production Press with a DocuSP front end. Pricing and Availability PANTONE digital chips is available in limited quantities in both European and U.S. versions at drupa in the Pantone Stand E04 (Hall 9) and in the Xerox Stand (north end of Hall 13). Pricing and distribution details will be announced after drupa.