The press was recently installed at the Bartlett School of Architecture, the university’s faculty of the built environment, which has 220 staff and 800 students.

“Before we had the high-speed printer, students had to wait before they could collect their CAD projects,” said UCL faculty head of IT Yusah Hamuth.

“During the hand-in period in May/June, where the print volume typically increases significantly, we could observe the queues in front of the printers getting longer and longer. The need for a high-speed printer was evident.”

Hamuth said important factors in the choice of printer were the ease-of-use and accessibility of the PageWide machine. Two media drawers that allow for up to four media rolls, together with two sets of CMYK ink cartridges, enable uninterrupted printing.

Students will have access to the printer during standard opening hours from 8.30am to 10.30pm, including on weekends, even when IT staff are not present.

“The best solution is to make the printers available to the students so that they can help themselves. This is why we don’t have to provide any additional staff to oversee the printing process,” said Hamuth.

“The dual set of ink cartridges is very convenient. If one cartridge runs out it automatically swaps to the other one.”

The Bartlett School of Architecture also operates an HP Designjet Z5400 PostScript ePrinter, which it has retained to run alongside the new PageWide device.

The faculty said training on the new machine went well, due to its existing familiarity with HP technology, but acknowledged that students still prefer to use cut-sheet technology for their projects.

The XL 5000, which was launched in 2015, handles technical document production at speeds of up to 14 D/A1-size ppm. PageWide technology consists of more than 200,000 nozzles on a stationary print bar spanning the width of the page.