Under the agreement the German manufacturer said it aimed to increase digital availability in mainstream printing including short- to medium-runs, variable date and quick turnaround printing. Heidelberg will both sell and service next generation Nanographic printing presses. 

Chief executive and chairman of the management board at Heidelberg Bernhard Schreier said using the Nanographic printing process would enable the firm to offer greater digital versatility. "As market leader, innovator and integrator, we are keenly aware of our customers' need for high volume production, cost effective printing of short runs, and quick turnaround times.

"In addition to our Linoprint C and Linoprint L offering, we will be able to complete our solutions to address our customer demands with Landa Nanography," he said.

Landa founder and chief executive Benny Landa said the collaboration was a major step towards achieving the industry-wide adoption of Nanography for mainstream digital printing.

"As the market leader, Heidelberg's adoption of Landa Nanographic Printing for its new generation digital presses is a clear message to the entire market: For the foreseeable future, offset and digital will not only co-exist, but will complement one another - offset for medium-to-longer jobs and digital for short-to-medium run lengths, not to mention variable data printing."

The news follows two earlier partnership announcements with the Landa Corporation: On Monday Manroland Sheetfed revealed an agreement that will see it develop digital products using nano print technology. As a result of the deal Manroland customers will be able to retrofit their existing presses to nano print technology.

And on 27 April the announcement of a global strategic partnership with Komori revealed the printer would use Landa Nanographic printing in its next generation digital presses for the commercial and packaging markets.

Landa Corporation describes the Nanographic printing process as "ultra-sharp dots of extremely high uniformity, high gloss fidelity and the broadest CMYK colour gamut".

It creates digital ink images, which can be applied to any off-the shelf substrate, including coated or uncoated paper-stock and plastic packing films, with no pre-treatment or post-drying required.

Landa claims the technology will produce the lowest cost-per-page digital images in the industry because Nanographic iamges are only 500 nanometres thick.

Further details of the process are expected to be revealed today at Landa's Drupa press conference.