The Portuguese printing market is undergoing a period of significant transition, marked by consolidation across the sector and an accelerating shift towards digital production.
As digitalisation continues to expand its footprint in the market, SCREEN Europe, working closely with its regional dealer for Portugal, Fernando Tordo CEO of inPrintout, welcomed a group of printing professionals from across Portugal for an exclusive event at its Inkjet Innovation Center (IIC) in Aalsmeer, Netherlands to explore how inkjet printing can drive a fresh wave of innovation in this sector.
The two-day programme combined strategic market insights, expert-led discussions, and live demonstrations of SCREEN’s digital inkjet technology across commercial printing, label, and packaging applications.
SCREEN Inkjet for the Portuguese Printing Market
A central feature of the programme was an in-depth perspective on the structural changes reshaping the Portuguese print sector, provided by Fernando Tordo and Dr. Lopes Castro, President of APIGRAF, the Portuguese Association of Graphic, Packaging and Digital Communication Industries.
Their combined analysis gave guests a clear picture that while overall print demand and volumes in Portugal remain broadly steady it is spreading into a larger number of individual, short-run, data-driven orders that analogue processes struggle to serve profitably, while the sector continues to face a serious and worsening shortage of skilled labour. The message from both speakers was clear, adapting to this new reality means embracing digital printing not as a distant aspiration but as a practical response to the conditions the market presents today.
Offering practical solutions following these strategic insights, technical presentations from SCREEN’s team and live demonstrations of their Truepress inkjet technology for commercial, label, and packaging applications allowed guests to directly experience how SCREEN’s technology addresses the specific challenges the Portuguese market is navigating.
For commercial print and publishing, guests saw SCREEN’s most advanced inkjet press for books and commercial applications, the Truepress JET 560HDX, available in the IIC showroom for the first time. The press produced high-quality printed samples from guests’ own client files, with results indistinguishable from offset, demonstrating how businesses can streamline their workflow, accept custom work with no minimum order requirement, and deliver the offset-level quality their clients expect, all from a single digital platform.
For packaging converters, recent volatility in substrate supply and the resulting price increases have made alternative materials and production methods an urgent commercial consideration. Against this backdrop, the Truepress PAC 520P, which has recently entered full production for paper-based flexible packaging across Europe, drew considerable interest. Guests saw how many of the product protection and consumer safety requirements historically associated with paper packaging have now been addressed, and learned that major brands have already accepted digitally printed paper flexible packaging into their ranges, a clear signal that adoption across the sector is set to accelerate.
A Clear Route Forward for Portuguese Printing
The event confirmed a clear direction of travel for the role that inkjet is set to play in the Portuguese market, moving digital printing from a strategic consideration to a practical priority for print businesses navigating structural change. Just as importantly, the open house offered a unique platform for spirited and open debate about the practical considerations and priorities involved in adopting digital printing, leaving guests with renewed confidence that SCREEN’s technology and local partnerships are well positioned to support that transition.
Reflecting on the event, Fernando commented, “Everyone at SCREEN, myself included, has known for some time that digital printing is exactly what Portuguese printers need. But seeing is believing. By bringing our printers to the Netherlands they could really hear and see how and why digital printing is the solution, I believe this event will prove transformative for the Portuguese printing industry in the years to come.”