As Australian Printer turns 70, we take a walk down memory lane and revisit some of the biggest news that made history and the building blocks that have moulded the industry. 

1950s…

• First drupa in Düsseldorf had 323,000 sq ft of exhibition space, with 400 exhibitors and more than 300,000 visitors
• Klischograph launches half-tone photo-engraver (by Dr Rudolf Hell)
• New Mander-Kidd Printing Ink factory in Sydney opens
• The first of the Printing Houses in Sydney section in AP featured the house of Penfold
• Aussie-designed printing-down machine gets produced in Britain
• Photopolymer used for flexo is launched
• Prepress term gets coined
• Inkjet printing emerges
• Facilities for spiral binding becomes available in NSW
• The Wonderful World of Insects (1st book phototypeset)
• Times New Roman exhibition opens in Sydney
• Australia’s first braille press starts in Sydney
• Carton printers stage first private packaging exhibition in NSW
• Penguin book production begins publishing in Melbourne
• Graphic Arts Discussion Group formed in Sydney
• Linotype Company introduces new photocomposing machine
• Sydney printer, C.P. Printers’ Base, launches new Australian-made plate base
• Australasian Printing Exhibition opens in Sydney
• Emergence of fax
• Lithographic Technical Foundation in New York makes available new L.T.F. colour chart in Australia
• NSW Government Printing office nears completion
• Official opening of Melbourne School of Printing and Graphic Arts
• New showroom opening for Monotype Corporation of Australia in Melbourne
• J. Ball opens new warehouse in Adelaide
• Seligson & Clare makes history as first Australian firm to have a stand at drupa
• Feature of the first printer in Australia in AP
• The monophoto arrives in Australia
• Merger of BJ Ball and Edwards Dunlop paper, which saw the trading name change to Edwards Dunlop & BJ Ball

1960s…

• New system for printing braille – dots printed through perforated zinc stencil using special PVC paste instead of ink
• WA Master Printers help publicise Commonwealth Games
• Wrap around plates starts being produced in Australia
• Letraset instant transfer lettering launches
• Ryobi and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries starts manufacturing sheet-fed offset printing presses
• New plant for Victorian Government printer launched
• Printing ink pigments get made in Australia
• Screen process printing takes off
• Sydney Group develops set-off tester
• Pantone Matching System (PMS) launches
• Colour scanner launches (Dr Rudolf Hell)
• Modern techniques reproduce Australia’s first newspaper
• Modern Canberra printing office opens
• Printers in the making at Sydney high schools
• Australian firsts with new machines in Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne
• Australia gets invited to join Asian Printers’ Congress
• Women staff proposed for printing industry
• Computersied typesetter DS 2038 (Dr Rudolf Hell) launches
• Hypertext term gets coined
• New braille press prints plastic dots
• Local ink makers adopt US colour system
• Victoria’s Miss Printing quest raises $18,812
• New microwave dryer unveiled
• First Crosfield Diascan 2000 colour scanner goes into operation in Australia
• Dot matrix printing emerges
• 3D printed postage stamps a success
• Laser printing introduced by Xerox
• Industry transforms from letterpress to offset
• New to Australia – Nyloprint plates
• Special typeface created for Australian needs

1970s…

• Water-based ink launches
• Australia goes metric
• American paper converter Nashua Corporation sets up plant in NSW
• Printing ink prices rise
• New gold offset ink is created
• Dover’s Pte Ltd in Melbourne installs Alphatype Photocomposition System – first in Australia
• The growth of web offset
• VRG Graphic Machinery installs Zaandam II newspaper folding and wrapping machine (first installation in Australia)
• 3M enters carbonless paper market in Australia
• Amalgamated Colour Etchers installs Australia’s first APR liquid photopolymer letterpress printing plate system
• Conpress Printing installs first web offset machine in Australia
• Optical character recognition arrives in Australia
• Thermal printing launches
• Graphical User Interface (GUI) gets developed by Xerox PARC
• World goes through newspaper shortage
• Computers develop faster web-offset folders
• ISO 216 paper standard launches
• Colour television arrives
• Screen printers see new ink release
• Flatbed CCD scanner launches (Kurzweil)
• Cyber was founded
• Currie and Company rebrands to Currie & Co
• Fairfax Newspapers automate processes
• Polychrome PSL new films gets made available in Australia
• Gocco compact colour screen printing system gets developed in Japan
• TeX typesetting for technical publishing launches
• Pemara Press installs and commissions first 170 FB/RY pressure sensitive label press in Australia from Ko-Pack Corporation in Tokyo
• Launch of new pre-press colour device
• Australia’s first colour photocopying service opens in Sydney
• W.Doggett Fine Paper arrives in Melbourne, growing to include offices in Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide

1980s…

• Canon and HP launch thermal drop-on-demand
• New developments in offset blankets
• Internet era begins
• Microsoft Disk Operating System (MS DOS) introduced
• Largest press installation in Australia to date is a Heidelberg at Cambec press
• Widespread use of automatic handling and mailroom facilities
• Adobe Systems founded
• Desktop publishing arrives
• Apple Macintosh personal computer unveiled
• Champion Press’ new $2 million plant
• Epson unveils Piezoelectric drop-on-demand
  Microsoft Windows launches
• Plate prices rise
• Agfa-Gevaert installs Australia’s first RPS 6000 Automatic Daylight Camera in Sydney
• Cambec Web first company in Southern Hemisphere to install new Heidelberg Web
• The Victor Harbor Times scores an Aussie first for a country newspaper – installation of a Compugraphic ONE phototypesetting system
• Soy-based ink introduced
• New pigment printing system developed by Albright & Wilson and CSIRO division of Protein Chemistry
• Giant new ink factory for Australia
• The Newcastle Herald installs first automated filminess platemaking system in Australasia
• Australia’s first Helio-Klischograph was installed at Deaton & Spencer
• Adobe Photoshop introduced
• Research Laboratories of Australia breaks through with electro-photographic pre-press proofs
• MAN Roland wins $742 million News Corp contract – largest in Australian printing history to date
• Revolutionary CRP System (graphics system) exhibited for the first time in Australia at PakPrint ’88
• Print run by The Book Printer creates new Australian record with a million bibles in a single print run to date
• Introduction of the first sheet-fed press with automatic plate changer and paper and impression preset system
• World’s first metallic dry transfer letting released in Australia by Letraset
• Hanna Match Group installs new Roland 600 press – first in Australia
• Holograms go from concept to application
• Currie Group opens new WA premises
• Greiner Government closes NSW printing office; 700 jobs lost
• Aus Taxation Office’s running that chemical proofs are exempt from sales tax saves printers millions

1990s…

• Xerox DocuTech – scan, edit, first print-on-demand launch
• World Wide Web launches
• Mitsubishi F-Series sheetfed press takes sheetfed presses a step closer to total automation and unmanned sheetfed printing
• New techniques enhance label printing
• Wright Technologies develops homegrown prepress tech for world
• Age honoured at Asia World Publishing Congress
• Yellow pages advertising at a high
• TrueType scalable computer introduced
• Heidelberg/Presstek GTO-DI direct impression press launches
• Indigo digital colour press, liquid toner launched
• Danish graphic arts giant enters Australasia
• Premier opens $10 million self-adhesives manufacturing plant
• $30 million modern Sydney printing and graphic arts facility opens
• CTP computer-to-plate by Agfa launches
• Arrival of Portable Document Format (PDF)
• Ink Express Printing buys Australia’s first two-colour Shinohara Fuji 52IIP
• Pot Still Press celebrates 25 years
• Australian first at Bowater Reding
• Prism joins Australian market
• Digital Ink breakthrough with Indigo digital offset colour printing
• Snap celebrates 25th birthday
• AM Graphics goes digital
• EACgraphics, world’s largest distributor of graphic arts equipment opens shop in Australia
• An independent ink laboratory and development centre opens in NSW (page 56, 1994 issue)
• Paper process rise 15 per cent
• Thermal printing plate launches
• com makes a debut
• Plate prices rise
• Sales tax exemptions on art work no longer included in tax office audits of printers
• Australian Paper builds multi-million paper machine, the first major capacity increase in Australia for more than 10 years
• Walter Alteri Printing in Melbourne first in world to install Hashimoto’s first six-coloured press
• Fuji Xerox secures $6 million contract to supply copiers to Qantas Airways
• OpenType scalable fonts for PC introduced
• PATEFA is renamed to PIAA, along with new logo
• Penfold Printing finalises contacts for supply of prepress equipment and software to the entire printing group – one of the largest in NSW
• Courtney Colour Graphics installs country’s first Presstek Pearlsetter from Heidelberg Australia
• Coverage of a magazine, Computer Generated Imaging, printed in 3D using a new optical technology
• Prime Minister (at that time) John Howard backs 200 years of printing in Australia program
• Printing industry faces $100 million loss through Asian currency crisis
• IBM offders total digital printing solutions
• AP buyers Guide on the internet goes live
• First PrintEx ’99 sees GAMAA and PIA joint organisation
• Paper prices rise to offset damage caused by the plummeting dollar
• Pakprint gets renamed to PacPrint, along with new logo
• Apple Computers radically redesigns iMac
• Böttcher Australian operation founded in Sydney
• Three chemical companies, including one from Australia, form International Pressroom Chemistry
• Business Software Association of Australia (BSAA) cracks down on piracy in the graphic arts industry

2000s…

• Indigo gets Pantone licensed
• The rise and fall of dot-coms
• Australia Post drops in on digital wave
• Amcor offloads paper division and forms it into a new company – PaperlinX
• Wikipedia
• Creative Commons
• Pacific Inks celebrates 25-year anniversary
• Heidelberg produces new handbook for graphic arts
• KBA’s new Australian team installs first sheetfed machine in Australia
• PMG launches Asia Pacific Packaging
• Hewlett Packard Wi-Fi laser printer launches
• Introduction of WordPress
• Apple takes strong bite into market
• Acrobat turns 12
• City Printing Works celebrates 100 years in printing
• Salmat sails into digital
• Three industry heavyweights come together to form Focus Paper
• David Graphics hits 50
• World first mill for Australia
• Australian Print Finishers Association established
• World’s smallest dictionary returns to Brisbane
• Konica and Minolta complete merger
• Facebook
• New printing safety guide launches
• Blue Star places Heidelberg Australia’s largest sheetfed order for four of its presses
• Double A paper enters Australian market
• Cyber sets up shop in Australia
• News Corp heads to the US
• Australian forest exports on the rise
• Gulmen Engineering installs first Gidue Press in Australia
• Twitter arrives
• Fuji Xerox enters digital web market
• Kwik Kopy opens first digital centre
• News Limited newspaper readership hits record 10 million a week
• Queensland Government invests in Goprint
• Kindle launches
• Victoria launches inaugural PICAs
• Ad skipping TV comes to Australia
• e-Paper threatens print
• Fed Minister calls on printers to open workplaces
• Labor promises a new role for print
• Industry standards body established for ISO in print
• Currie & Co rebrands to Currie Group
• World’s biggest printer Quebecor World Inc, battles bankruptcy
• Rudd chops MPs’ printing allowance
• E-reading arrives
• Amcor builds $400 million recycled paper mill
• Bottcher Australia turns 10
• Geon opens first digital print hub
• News Limited invests $52 million in new print centre
• ACP decides to build giant print site by 2011
• FedEx Kinkos shuts all Australian stores
• Printing industry faces higher electricity and water charges
• Australian Paper launches 100 per cent carbon neutral book paper
• Bambra Press first in Australia to install Heidelberg XL75 press
• Ricoh launches Printing Innovation Centre in Sydney and unveils new Melbourne showroom
• PIAA launches NSW sustainable print training – first in Australia
• Queensland Government endorses PIAA sustainable plan
• Percival Print and Packaging first in Australia to install KBA Rapida 106

2010s…

• Apple iPad launches
• Instagram arrives
• Fed Government reveals suppliers for $220 million print buying programme
• NSW Government commits to future use of print
• Fed Government establishes pulp and paper council
• Printing industries launch network for young players in print
• Vistaprint arrives in Australia
• Printing Industries launches new campaign to keep print in Australia
• Salmat launches nationwide print and distribution network
• Snapchat launches
• EFI raises the stakes in MIS with Prism acquisition
• Ricoh launches Australia’s first solar-powered sign in Sydney skyline
• Immigration department awards $4.2 million contract to Blue Star
• Salmat accelerates shift into electronic media
• Kindle device becomes Amazon’s top-selling product of all time
• IPMG sheds newspaper arm with sale to Fairfax
• Finsbury Green wins multi-million-dollar deal with NSW Government
• Geon prints 8.3 million ballots in one weekend in major Government contract
• EFI enters digital ceramic printing market with Cretaprint acquisition
• Currie Group installs the first B2 digital press in the region, the HP Indigo 10000
• Merger of Ryobi and MHI, resulting in the launch of Ryobi MHI Graphic Technology
• Böttcher establishes local manufacturing in Sydney
• Decline in print manufacturing performance begins
• Paper prices go up six to nine per cent
• Allkotes launches world’s first print finishing app
• Mechanical newspaper printing turns 200
• Fuji Xerox Document Management Solutions wins $4.8 million government contract
• Flash Graphics first in Australia to install Screen Truepress Jet W3200UV-HS
• Scientists print biggest solar cells in Australia
• Printers cash in on Government contracts worth up to tens of millions of dollars
• Drupa moves to three-year cycle
• Label and Tag Manufacturers Association of Australia (LATMA) and Australia New Zealand Flexographic Technical Association (ANZFTA) merge
• Wellcom wins massive Coles and Target contracts
• World first as APP retires 700ha of land
• Paper prices rise by double digits
• $1.2 million Government backed Trade Mailing business closes its doors
• Major merger sees three Melbourne printers – Ability Press, Docklands Press and Mercedes Waratah and M&M Binders merge
• Pierre Pienaar becomes first Aussie to attain Certified Packaging Professional (CPP)
• News Corp makes multi-million-dollar mailroom move
• John’s Print Centre (JPC) installs Australia’s first Océ Arizona 6170
• Blue Star rebrands to IVE
• BJ Ball acquires Access Paper
• Centrum installs largest laminator in country
• HP buys Samsung printer business for US$1billion
• AGS brings PlateWriter 3600 Pro to Australia
• First Aussie 3D printing firm Aurora Labs debuts on ASX
• Australia Post trials drone parcel delivery
• Blue Star Web first in Asia-Pacific to install Heidelberg Speedmaster XL106-10
• Intec Printing Solutions comes to Australia
• Outdoor audiences up by 200,000 a day
• New Digital Print installs Australia’s first Durst Tau 330 UV inkjet label press
• Press Print first to launch HP Indigo 12000 in Australia
• Lightning Source signs biggest ever order with HP for 24 PageWide T240 HD presses
• Packaging Council of Australia (PCA) merges with PIAA
• Pitney Bowes brings Riso GD to Australia
• First Australian Konica Minolta B2 digital inkjet sheetfed press sold to Minuteman Press franchisees
• Insane Signs and Print buys two Durst Rho 512R Plus in world first
• Orora expands into US market
• Signs Unique Installations first in Australia to buy Roland DG’s Camm-1 GR Series vinyl cutter
• Introduction of robot-assisted sheet-fed offset presses
• Böttcher merges with Brissett Rollers
• Paper volumes hit 30-year low
• Fairfax and Nine merge
• Böttcher and Brissett in major merger
• Intermedia acquires Australian Printer
• Australasian Catalogue Association, TSA Limited, and Australasian Paper Industry Association form new association, The Real Media Collective
• Mediapoint invests in Australian first with new Durst P10 250 HS Plus
• Vivad adds Australia’s first Bullmer 5m cutting table to its ranks
• Spot on Finishing installs country’s first Duplo UV Coater digital embellishing system
• Canva hits $1 billion valuation
• Böttcher opens greenfield manufacturing site in Sydney
• Currie Group celebrates 70 years in business
• PIAA renames to Print & Visual Communications Association
• Industry consolidations increase
• Printers affected by fires that affect Queensland, NSW and Victoria
• Sprinter launches
• Mezographic purchases Durst P5 250HS, first of its kind in Australia
• Big Image Australia installs country’s first MCT Gerber cutting table
• Intertype installs Fuji Xerox Iridesse press, becoming first printer worldwide to combine it with Color-Logic for metallic printing effects
• Durst officially launches Oceania operations
• USQ Ellipsis Media first company to adopt Fujifilm Jet Press 750S
• The formation of Ball & Doggett – a merger between BJ Ball and K.W.Doggett Fine Paper occurs

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