Microprinting
The example of “nanoprinting” that we saw in the last blog did not have an (obvious) immediate usage. But can printing at a size too small for human reading have an interest ?
Certainly, as it is a great security measure. Almost all banknotes have a number of security features, like UV ink (which I blogged on earlier), another one of them being microprinting (printing so small that it is barely visible from the human eye, which is not scanneable and re-printable). This is a common security measure which adds an (almost) invisible watermark on the document, which can then be read by a human with a magnifying lens.
Microprinting, until now, required expensive machinery. It however now becomes possible, with a digital printer, to actually microprint on regular paper.
Owing to a specific micro-font, this data can now be variable, not just the “standard” microprint you would see on a banknote – Every microprint can be different and generated just-in-time !
The amount of text that can be printed is very impressive – a 100 page book can be printed on a 8.5×11 sheet of paper. Not quite the density of nanobooks, but there are a few immediate applications in the document security space such as those mentioned in this press release.
Kudos to Reiner Eschbach and his team for great innovations like UV print, micro-text fonts, and others I’ll blog on in the future !
[...] might remember a few technologies I blogged on earlier – namely Microprinting , UV fluorescence, and Glossmarks (which I’ll blog on in more details in the future – in a [...]
I have been trying to locate printers who can do a microprinting job for me with little success. Is it possible to give me some leads on printers who have and use your microprinting technology? The job I have in mind would be printing one-color, two-sided texts on ordinary papers in a very small font. Thank you and best regards.