Standards Development

Scope

This document specifies test methods as well as test charts to measure the geometric property attributes and those variations in colour prints typically used in office environment. This document is applicable to duplex prints comprising several sheets which are printed colour images on both surfaces of a substrate. While “within-page variation” and “sheet-to-sheet variation” are also applicable for a simplex print set comprising several sheets which are printed colour images on one surface of a substrate and no image on the other surface. Printed matters with 4 primary colorants other than cyan, magenta, yellow and black are outside the scope of this document.

Included are digital prints formed by using a multifunction or single function printer. When a duplex print set is evaluated, duplex printers which are capable to print images on both sides of substrate automatically are applicable, while simplex printers which require a manual arrangement of substrates between the front side and back side printing to form duplex prints are out of scope of this document. The printers of the maximum applicable substrate size of A4 or larger are suitable for the measurements.

The geometric property attributes included are registration and magnification of a print set. The sources of variations considered are locations in a page, print side in a sheet, print order of sheets in a print set, and variations among primary colours. 

Purpose

As most of the office documents are currently printed as duplex print sets comprising several sheets printed colour images on both surface of substrates, there is a need for a standard specifying measurement methods that quantitatively evaluate geometrical attributes of duplex print sets in addition to simplex print sets.

ISO 15311-1 developed by TC130 includes similar measuring methods for printed matters used in printing industry. However, ISO 15311-1 is not applicable to ordinary office prints because customer requirements and usage cases in printing industry are different from those in office print market. In addition, the measurement methods in the proposed standard can be measured with a commercially available scanner, and is easy for general users to use.

SC28 proposes to develop a new standard to specify geometric property measurement methods for duplex colour prints used in typical office environments fully utilizing knowledges of SC28 for the office market and printing technologies.

SC28 concluded that test methods specified in this document must also be applicable to simplex print sets with appropriate changes in test conditions. Therefore, Scope is specified to take simplex print set measurements into account.