Wide format ink jet printers, links, tips, helpful information for Encad, Roland, Hewlett-Packard DesignJet, ColorSpan, Ilford, Raster Graphics, Mutoh, Mimaki piezoelectric, Iris, Glicee fine art large format printers, EFI Fiery RIP, Postscript RIP servers for wide format printers, ColorSpan, AHT Advanced Hi-Tech Corp, Colorbus, Splash, software RIP, Yarc, Amiable, Harlequin, Visual Edge Technology, 3M Cactus, laminating wide-format prints Seal, GBC, USI, Ledco. Tests, reviews, and recommendations for wide format printers by Nicholas Hellmuth.

complete index of this entire web site starts below.

What large format printer is best for your business? What wide carriage printer might be a mistake? What if you have a client waiting for the output from your wide format printer? What should you do if you are stuck with a slow and pokey wide format printer? How to speed up and increase productivity. What PostScript RIP is best, and which RIP should you avoid.

Should I buy an Epson? an Encad? a Hewlett-Packard? Roland? or ColorSpan?

Our tests require that a printer hold up 90 days without breaking down and needing substantial technical help! Next step is to see whether that same printer will hold up an entire year. Thus it is rather obvious that we do not accept quickie 30-day tests. It's not always easy to get a demo on loan for long enough to really find out how well it holds up. Encad and HP, however, both knew their printers would hold up forever so they provided them without flinching.

So which printer should you buy, ColorSpan, Hewlett-Packard, Encad, Roland....or the Epson? We inspected all these printers at the last dozen trade shows in 2000, 2001, 2003 and now again in 2003.

If you need help deciding what wide format color printer to buy, what RIP to select, just send an e-mail to the senior review editor, contact Nicholas Hellmuth. Please be sure to mention what kind of images you reproduce, what your market is, your level of experience such as whether you are new to digital printing, and what printers did you consider before reading the reviews on this site.

Although this web site has hundreds of pages, we put all the new additional material into the FLAAR Reports in PDF format because so many readers say they prefer to get everything all edited and downloadable in PDF.

FLAAR, Digital Imaging Technology Center, reviews by Nicholas Hellmuth

last updated March 1, 2002, updated Sep. 10, 2002; updated May 15, 2003; last updated May 21, 2003

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Updates on wide format printers from March 2004 onward are contained in the
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Additional updates from winter 2005 onward are also being put into the FLAAR Report Series in PDF format and are available on www.wide-format-printers.NET.