The Cheshire council, which switched from Ricoh kit to Konica Minolta two months ago up, looked at several booklet systems, before deciding on the Morgana device, according to principal reprographics officer Alan Argent.

"It is highly versatile and requires the minimum of adjustment to cope with the wide range of work we produce," said Argent. "Even though the machine has been in only a few weeks we have managed one urgent request from our local theatre that we could never have coped with in-house before the arrival of this unit. They needed programmes in a last minute rush: we turned the entire job around inside a day."

Halton digital department recently swapped a Ricoh Pro C651 colour machine and a black and white model for three Konica Minoltas - a Bizhub C6000 colour machine and two Bizhub Pro 951 black and white models - to print booklets for internal departments.

Argent said the efficiency of the new bookletmaking system may attract commercial work beyond its usual customer base, such as local schools. The Morgana replaced a Watkiss bookletmaker, which was used alongside a two-colour Komori litho press before Halton went digital four years ago.

"The System 2000 can produce booklets up to 120 pages, with output of up to 3,000 booklets an hour though our typical runs are in their hundreds," he said. "We can now offer more on the finishing side so maybe we can attract more work."

The system is fed by the hybrid ACF510 feeder capable of feeding pre-collated sets from a digital print engine, collating litho printed sections, or combining both into a finished book product. The heavy-duty bookletmaking section comes with wire-stitching heads and fore-edge trimmer.

Morgana marketing director Ray Hillhouse said: "The needs of this installation show the difference in post-press requirements when making the change from litho to digital. Older-style binding kit just can’t compare with efficient bookletmaking systems made with digital production in mind."