The Rotherham company said the kit, which cost about £275,000, offered "outstanding print quality with virtually no waste, easy operation and substantial environmental benefits".

Director John Brailsford said: "Within just a few minutes, we have imaged plates and produced a first sheet out of the machine in perfect register and up to colour."

The four-colour 52DI prints 10,000sph and can handle board thickneses up to 500gsm for presentation folders.

"Quality is so effortless and production performance tremendous. When we came to replace our old kit we wanted something new to stand out, not replace like for like," Brailsford said.

"We can print 1,000 sheets in 20 minutes, where the old kit would take an hour, with makeready and putting it all through the system.

"Savings in time, labour and paper waste compared to our traditional offset four-colour press are enormous," he added.

"Customers are already commenting on the super-sharp 300-line screen and rich intense colour that our waterless Presstek 52DI produces.

"We believe the way forward in our saturated marketplace is to offer customers something that sets us apart from the competition of regular colour offset."

He said that moving into waterless printing was completely new to the 15-staff business, but the learning curve was quick and his team was familiar with the equipment in a few weeks.

Brailsford claimed he didn't expect the new purchase to add greatly to the business's current £1.2m turnover, "but it makes us more efficient and our staff happier, so it's good for us".

The company also recently bought two Ricoh 1357 fully configured copiers with punching capability for snap-bound manuals, each costing £120,000.

"They do everything we want and lots more so there's scope for us to expand our horizons," Brailsford added.