Canon launched the machine at its Customer Experience Centre, Munich, on 17 February, and it is now on show at the Hunkeler Innovation Days trade show in Lucerne, Switzerland (20-23 February).

Canon vice-president of strategy and alliances Crit Driessen said: “This is the latest addition to our portfolio of continuous-feed and sheetfed devices, with a very high print quality as required and very high media capabilities.

“It is the highest possible print quality in continuous-feed presses, with a high level of media versatility and a new level of colour coverage and colour gamut.”

The machine features a new high-definition 1200dpi Océ DigiDot printhead along with its new non-contact flotation drying technology. It deploys a new pigmented polymer ink set that Canon says matches or exceeds the offset colour gamut for high-quality applications.

The press can be used to produce a wide range of variable content, including premium direct mail and marketing materials, personalised books, brochures and catalogues.

It has a printing width of 540mm and its maximum speed of 80m/min means it can process up to 1,076 A4 images per minute and 35 million A4 pages per month, according to the manufacturer. 

The ProStream boasts Canon’s ColorGrip paper-conditioning technology, which it says optimises print quality on standard coated and uncoated papers from 60 to 160gsm. The new flotation drying system also reduces physical stresses on papers, leaving the printed image untouched until dry.

Speaking to PrintWeek, Canon product manager Johann Schmidbauer said: “The ProStream was designed from scratch and with one immediate vision, to maximise potential quality of continuous-feed inkjet. That was the vision of the R&D team and with that they challenged every component in the product and redesigned where necessary.

“We are now targeting applications that were not addressable before because some of these applications had a very high entry-barrier when it comes to print quality.”

Canon has also used Hunkeler Innovation Days to announce that the first four European installations of the ProStream will be in the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and Poland. It will be commercially available from 2017.

It is also showing on its stand the imagePress C10000, which Driessen said had had more than 300 sales in the EMEA region last year.

Last September, Canon announced it had sold more than 1,000 continuous-feed inkjet printers worldwide since it began manufacturing and supplying the technology in 2008.

Canon will also be exhibiting at PrintWeekLive!, where it plans to illustrate new opportunities for printers.