Labelexpo, Brussels - Global Graphics, a leading developer of platforms for digital printing including the Harlequin RIP®, announces today that it has extended its relationship with HP Indigo to include the HP Indigo range of labels and packaging presses. 

The Harlequin RIP has been chosen as the RIP engine inside the HP Production Pro for Indigo Labels & Packaging. This is the new HP digital front end (DFE) designed to drive all HP Indigo digital labels and packaging presses. The HP Indigo WS6800 will be the first press that comes optionally equipped with the HP Production Pro and this will later be extended to the HP Indigo 8000, the HP Indigo 20000 and the HP Indigo 30000 presses.  These presses produce labels, folding cartons, flexible packaging and shrink sleeves, and require a powerful digital front end to produce the performance and versatility that converters print shops need, especially as more and more variability is used in this sector.

The Harlequin RIP already provides the RIPping power for the DFE that is used across the entire HP Indigo commercial press range. These presses, known for their exceptional “digital offset” quality and high productivity, are used for a wide variety of applications such as photobooks, direct marketing and publishing.

Gary Fry, Global Graphics’ CEO comments, “We enjoy a longstanding relationship with HP Indigo. We are delighted that the Harlequin RIP, as well as our partnership approach to engineering and support, has so impressed HP Indigo in the commercial print space that they are now expanding its use into their labels and packaging presses.” 

Roy Faigenbloom, HP Indigo product manager says, “Global Graphics technology is proven in the field. We have thousands of customers today whose commercial presses use the Harlequin-based HP Production Pro. Harlequin offers the needed processing power to drive labels and packaging workflows and Global Graphics has proved itself to be a very responsive technology partner.” 

Global Graphics and HP Indigo have collaborated to ensure that converters who install a new press alongside an existing model will be able to match the weight of output, regardless of their pre-existing HP solution, an important factor for regulated markets. They will also be able to achieve the same color, including emulated brand colors, while benefiting from the speed advantages that the Harlequin RIP brings.  

HP Production Pro is built on the field-proven foundations of Production Pro with the Harlequin RIP, Esko Color Engine, and PrintOScloud connectivity. The Production Pro provides a single point of control to the press operator to streamline and manage the print workflow.  It allows extra performance to be added to HP Indigo digital presses when required because it offers a unique capability of scaling up the RIP hardware up to 8x the basic configuration to increase RIP capacity even further and control multiple presses from a single server. 

Global Graphics first announced its partnership with HP to provide printing software for HP Indigo print servers in 2002 with the introduction of the HP Production Pro.  The two companies’ collaboration was expanded again in 2004 when Global Graphics partnered with HP to provide the Harlequin RIP as the standard on-board RIP that shipped with every HP Indigo 5000 digital press. At IPEX 2010 a new agreement was signed to provide Harlequin for the DFEs that drive all HP Indigo commercial presses and IHPS devices ( HPPageWide Industrial). 

The Harlequin RIP is known for its high-performance and reliability, notably in production intensive environments.  It is the industry benchmark for speed even as workflows become more complex, carrying larger amounts of data than ever before.  While the use of variable data is still a relatively small proportion of label and packaging print it is expected to grow and Harlequin’s feature for processing these files - Harlequin VariData™ – will ensure that print jobs continue to be RIPped at speed.