The Canon-commissioned "Insight Report: Digital Printing Directions" report interviewed 600 printers and predicted good news for small print businesses due to advances in workflow and technology.

It claimed copy shops and quick printers will evolve their range of services to adapt to a new digital age.

2020 is also pinned as the year that print runs finally end their decline with threats posed by global competition and electronic media, including the internet, "finally reach their end".

The report highlights that as many as one in five print jobs will be for run lengths as low as one copy with more than half of all print jobs today coming in at less than 2,000 copies.

The report was researched and written by Professor emeritus at the Rochester Institute of Technology, Frank Romano, and a team of graduate students.

Romano said: "In 1951, an article in a British magazine said that offset lithography was 'only good for quick and dirty printing'. There were plenty of articles published in the 1990s that echo this sentiment when digital printing was first introduced.

"Now, a little more than 10 years later, there is an awful lot more respect being shown for the technology," he said.