When you are in the market for wide-format printers, whether for business or for personal use, which printer manufacturers should you turn to in order to find the kind of printer that you want? Here are nine of the top companies in the printing industry that produce wide-format printers.
1. Canon. Canon is already one of the leading manufacturers of desktop printers and other similar equipment. For the wide-format printer arena, it offers the imagePROGRAF line of printers, with the 5-color printers for general and technical printing and the 12-color printers for the creation of digital photos and fine art. Sizes vary from 17 inches to 60 inches.
2. Epson. Epson’s line of wide-format printers is called the Epson Stylus Pro. These printer models come in compact sizes 17 inches wide, as well as in 64 inches. These printer models are mostly for creating signage and digital photo prints. Epson also has solvent printer models.
3. Hewlett-Packard. HP is a major player in the printer arena with its HP Designjet series of printers. This series has entry models that are priced low enough for printing high-quality photo prints and digital fine art at home, as well as high-end models for commercial and corporate printing needs. Sizes vary from 24 inches to 60 inches.
4. Kodak. Under its subsidiary company, Encad, Inc., Kodak also offers wide-format known in the market as the NovaJet printers. The NovaJet printers have 8-color and 4-black Kodak cartridge systems that promise to print out high quality graphic files on a variety of media, as well as AutoCADD printouts.
5. Mimaki. Mimaki is a Japanese printer manufacturer that truly specializes on wide-format printers. The company’s printers are not for entry-level users but are rather for professionals, such as artists and photographers who want to create their own printouts. The Mimaki brand of printers is also known in their versatility in that the models can use almost any kind of printer ink without displaying a lot of problems.
6. Mutoh. Mutoh is another printer manufacturer that fully focuses on providing commercial wide-format. The printers that Mutoh provides can work with different kinds of printer inks such as solvent and water-based ink, as well as with different kinds of printing technologies like direct textile printing, dye sublimation and UV curing.
7. Oce. For high-speed solutions to commercial printing needs, Oce has a number of products available for monochrome and color CADD printing, as well as for monochrome and color graphics and photo printing.
8. Roland. Roland also specializes in various commercial printing solutions. The company has many different lines of wide-format printers for printing signage for use in both indoor and outdoor settings. Printer sizes range from 30 inches to 104 inches and some models have built-in cutters.
9. Yuhan-Kimberly. If you are looking for a wide-format printer for textiles, you may want to give Yuhan-Kimberly a serious thought. This Korea-based printer manufacturer is a leader in textile printing, and its printers can work with textiles for fashion and apparel as well as with interior decorating.
