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Xerox Versant 80 Press I


Xerox Versant 80 Press

August 2018

Dr. Nicholas Hellmuth and Jose Melgar

Preview for Sign Istanbul 2018


Xerox Versant 80 Press 1

Year by year trade shows focus more on wide-format inkjet printers and less on office-size toner printers. So we at FLAAR Reports definitely notice the few visual communications and signage trade shows that still exhibit short-run digital presses and office copiers.

Graphics of the Americas in Florida used to have lots of toner printers and also Xeikon for short-run digital presses. But the Miami conven-tion center has not been available for two years and most of the Spanish-speaking audience of GOA now attend ISA and SGIA (so, sadly, there is not much left of GOA). The loss of this expo, which had both inkjet and toner printers, is part of the worldwide trend.

So this is more reason why we recommend Sign Istanbul, since we have noticed more toner printers and short-run digital presses here each year than at most other expos around the world.

Most companies in the graphics industry hire Public Relations agencies to help them increase brand awareness, manage their reputation and ultimately increase sales. These types of agen-cies are certainly needed to help people discov-er new products and learn about upgrades.

The downside of the PR publication is that it is written precisely to highlight the pros of a machine, in the best of the cases, or make-up the average capabilities, which is the most common practice. PR agencies are paid to write comments that is provided by the manufacturer.

And because the savvy customer is starving for useful and unbiased information before making a purchase decision, FLAAR Reports is read by thousands of print shop owners, managers and people in the industry in general.

Our publications highlight the advantages and disadvantages of a machine. In addition, we share comments on the status of the industry and the trends we spot at every tradeshow, factory and print shop we visit around the world.

We are able to produce unbiased content because our publications are not our main source of income. Instead, we have sponsorship agreements with a number of brands that allow us to do what we do best: research.

We thank LiDYA GRUP and its nice staff for pro-viding access to the XEROX Versant 80 Press to document the print quality of this machine.

LiDYA is one of the big printer distributors in Turkey; this company sells XEROX, EFI and oth-er high-end brands.

Because FLAAR Reports has an education branch, the print samples we use to evaluate a printer, are not thrown away; we keep them and fly them back to Guatemala, Central Amer-ica, (where our office is located), to donate it to schools in poor rural areas, that would other-wise not have access to this type of high-quali-ty, full-color educational material.

Print Samplesto allow determining print quality and document printer qualityXEROX Versant 80 Press, LiDYA GRUP at Sign Istanbul 2018



Xerox Versant 80 PressDistributed by LiDYA GRUP

LiDYA GRUP was established in 2001 in Turkey, and has noticeable experience in digital presses for document print-ing. LiDYA is XEROX’s biggest partner in the Southeast Europe region. The company is headquartered in Istanbul, but has four other offices in Turkey. The company has

In recent years, the company has also started to sell wide-format inkjet printers, and represents EPSON, and EFI. The latter is one of the best wide-format UV-curing printer brands in the world. (we know this since we have visited two of the EFI factories during the past two decades plus have visited several printshops, in Dubai and in USA, which have EFI printers (one of these printshops used to have Durst, but switched to EFI).



The Xerox Versant 80 Press is a full color digital press that prints up to 80 pages (11” x 8.5”) per minute. Besides the traditional CMYK colors, this press has a half-tone system that allows for smoother color transitions. This Xerox model has a true print resolution of 2400 x 2400 dpi.

This digital press has option-al modular accessories for finishing. For example, a hole punching system, a folding and stitching system, to pro-duce finished booklets.

So you can tell LiDYA has a high standard when choosing brands to distribute. Thus Xerox is an appropriate brand for them.



FLAAR’s educational branch has a diverse team of several researchers, botanists, zoologists, graphic designers and illustrators to produce educational material contextualized for Central American schools in the areas of Mesoameri-can cultures (Olmec, Teotihuacan, Zapotec, Mixtec, Toltec, Aztec, and Maya). Mesoamerica is the technical term for all parts of Mexico and Central America that were occupied by or significantly influenced by these civilizations.

FLAAR Reports is the division that does research and provides documentation on printers, cutters, inks, printable materials, etc. MayanToons is the division of FLAAR, which designs books for school children, especially primary, and secondary school ages.



When we print test samples at a trade show, the team at FLAAR Reports check the prints for color gamut and print quality. Then the test prints are given to the FLAAR MayanToons division to drive out to remote mountain and rain forest areas to donate material to the schools in these far-away areas. Often not even 4-wheel drive can reach these villages: we hike through the hills to reach the schools.

We then meet with the teachers to learn what can best help them; and we speak with the students to learn what kind of educational material they like. They are unanimous in asking for material in all three languages: local Mayan lan-guage, Spanish, and also English.

Our designers put two copies of the book into each file. This way we can cut the result in half and now we have two copies.



We hope to evaluate minimal text size in a future opportunity. The smallest text on our samples were 12 points, but we know this Xerox Versant can produce really small text. As for the colors, the yellows were especially good.

In addition to being high-quality, colorful prints, this material is the only one in Guatemala to include three langages: Q’eqchi’, Spanish and English.

It was interesting to evaluate several brands of toner presses, and to compare both print quality and performance.

The Xerox Versant 80 Press has a recommended average monthly volume of up to 80,000 pages and handles a wide range of papers: coated, uncoated, tabs, envelops, polyester/synthetic, textured, colored, custom media and mixed-stock printing.

As for the sizes, this press handles sheets as small as 5.5” x 7.2” (139 x 182 mm), up to 13” x 19.2” (330 x 488 mm).

Other Specs



In general, the color saturation was good. Take into account however that for this test we only printed a handful booklet copies. We would like to test color consistency in a further, more complete test that involves high volume printing.

Speaking of color consistency, the Xerox Versant 80 Press has a system called SIQA (Simple Image Quality Adjust-ment), which allows for more control on alignment, color density, and image transfer.

This digital press is a modular system that allows you to add components to trim, punch, fold, etc.



The printed samples are brought back to Guatemala,

and the MayanToons team organizes trips to remote

areas far from the cities, to donate this samples to public schools. Here, Shayla, a three

year old girl, holding one of the booklets printed by Xerox.

Here, Dr. Nicholas Hellmuth during a school presentation to announce the donation of the material.

Many of the kids in those schools had never had access to high-quality full-color edu-cational material. Especially not in their native language. This initiative promotes inter-est in the kids to minimize school dropout rates.

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Dr. Nicholas Hellmuth during a school presentation in a remote rural village in Guatemala.

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