Its exhibit in Hall 8a will include a concept digital sheetfed corrugated press.
This will be a single-pass inkjet architecture printing at 8,000sqm/hour and 1.7m-wide. Specification includes four to seven colours, and water-based inks.
It will also showcase a short-run alternative to traditional litho lamination print using its Arizona wide-format device with UVgel ink.
In the labels space Canon will showcase the new LabelStream LS2000, with food safety compliant inks. The press is 340mm wide, and prints in CMYK plus white, at up to 40m/min.
Canon is carrying out an extensive market and technical study on the potential opportunities for use of its technology in the folding cartons market.
As part of its strategy to "shift more high-volume work from offset to digital and onto high quality coated stock", the manufacturer has also expanded its web-fed inkjet portfolio with the new ProStream 2000 series, featuring two models printing at 80m/min or 133m/min, with a maximum width 558mm.
The ProStream range also gains a new flagship model in the shape of the 160m/min ProStream 3160.
Its ColorStream 8000 series gains a faster 200m/min version, while the entry-level 110m/min 8110 model allows users to carry on using existing finishing systems.
The ColorStream will be shown with an inline Hunkeler finishing setup, producing variable content colour book blocks.
Canon claims the number one spot in continuous feed inkjet with 2,000 installations worldwide.
Regarding the firm’s product range and large existing customer base, Jennifer Kolloczek, senior director marketing and innovation for Production Print at Canon Europe, said the business was “really proud we can live up to the trust of our customers”.
“We’ll be showing the full breadth of the Canon portfolio. Print is one of four priority business sectors for Canon for strategic growth,” she stated.
“Right now, we’re offering one of the broadest production print portfolios in the industry, serving commercial and in-house print service providers.
It has actually been quite amazing to reflect on everything that has happened in those last eight years both in our business and well as for our customers.
“We have become an even stronger and healthier company in that time. Our approach is a collaborative one, involving ourselves, our channel partners, and of course our customers – that dynamic collaboration is embodied in our new campaign ‘The Power to Move’.”
At the last Drupa in 2016 Canon showed a prototype B2-plus sheetfed inkjet press, the Voyager. It used an offset cylinder to transfer up to seven colours onto standard uncoated or gloss coated papers at speeds of up to 3,000sph.
Canon was tight-lipped on any current plans for B2 inkjet but there’s a hint something could be in the works and the promise of more details at the show.
Hans Schmidbauer, director for marketing and innovation, commercial printing, said that sheetfed digital was “pertinent to most customers visiting Drupa”, and revealed that Canon has more than 600 installations of its VarioPrint i and iX sheetfed presses worldwide.
At Drupa the 170ipm VarioPrint iX1700 will have its formal debut outside of Japan. It uses 2,400x1,200dpi heads with first EMEA shipments slated for 2025.
However, Schmidbauer noted that for many customers, toner “was still the optimum choice”.
Also new is version 2.1 of the PrismaElevate XL for Arizona flatbed printers, which allows tactile printing with a height of 4mm – double the previous height.
Canon FLXflow technology for the Arizona 2300 series will have its European debut at the show.
