Xerox DocuTech (Production Publisher, 1990)

What the Xerox DocuTech was

The Xerox DocuTech was a high-speed digital printing and publishing system that Xerox announced on October 2, 1990, as the DocuTech Production Publisher. Rather than a simple printer, it was an integrated machine that could digitally scan paper originals, store and edit those documents, and then reprint them on demand at print-shop quality. The original unit, later designated the Model 135 (DT135), printed black-and-white pages at up to 135 pages per minute on letter-size (8.5-by-11-inch) paper and a resolution of 600 dots per inch.

Launching digital print-on-demand

The DocuTech is widely associated with the birth of digital print-on-demand. Xerox's own materials say the system "spawned digital print on demand" and "forever changed printing," and Wikipedia describes it as "arguably the first fully integrated 'print-on-demand' publishing system," crediting the DocuTech line with establishing the print-on-demand industry. Its combination of scanning, electronic storage and editing, and finished output — including stitched or tape-bound books — meant that a document could be produced only when and in the quantity needed, rather than printed and warehoused in advance. Xerox received a 2005 U.S. National Medal of Technology and Innovation for having "created the modern reprographics, digital printing, and print-on-demand industries."

How it worked: scan, store, edit, print

The DocuTech separated the capture of a document from its printing. Originals could be digitized on a platen or fed automatically through a recirculating document feeder rated at up to 23 pages per minute. Receiving electronic page images from remote computers over a network was not a feature of the original 1990 Production Publisher; that network connectivity arrived later, with the June 1992 DocuTech 135 Network Publisher. Captured pages were stored on internal disk drives, where they could be retrieved, reordered, and edited before printing. When printed, jobs ran through Xerox's proprietary Mesa-processor controller, which was designed for high-speed image processing — the same rasterizing role performed in modern systems by a raster image processor.

The print engine and imaging system

The DocuTech's marking engine was xerographic (electrophotographic): a laser wrote a charge pattern onto a photoconductor, which was developed with toner and fused to paper. Wikipedia records that the image was generated by a "digitally driven, dual-beam Laser ROS (Raster Output Scanner)," and that the print engine was based on the earlier Xerox 5090 duplicator announced in 1988. Xerox's press materials emphasize that the machine's 600-dot-per-inch resolution was "twice the standard at the time," pairing that resolution with what Xerox called the industry's then-fastest print speed.

Documented specifications

Authoritative sources agree on the DocuTech's headline figures: 600 x 600 dpi resolution and up to 135 pages per minute on letter-size (8.5-by-11-inch) paper, both stated in Xerox's own release and in the printed DocuTech Model 135 specification sheet. That Xerox specification sheet also documents the up-to-23-pages-per-minute document scan rate and two-sided sheet handling up to 11 x 17 inches. Wikipedia additionally reports 32 MB of RAM, a Xerox proprietary Mesa-processor controller, and a digitally driven dual-beam Laser ROS with the print engine derived from the Xerox 5090 duplicator; those encyclopedia-only details are presented as such. Figures that cannot be traced to an authoritative source — including any launch price — are omitted here rather than estimated.

Place in printing history

The original DocuTech 135 was quickly extended: in June 1992 Xerox announced the DocuTech 135 Network Publisher, adding the network connectivity that had been planned but absent at launch, and a slower Model 90 followed. The DT135 platform was later retired in favor of the DocuTech 61xx series, and the broader lineage eventually gave way to Xerox Nuvera systems. According to Xerox's 25th-anniversary materials, the DocuTech program spanned about a decade and involved several thousand engineers, and more than 1,500 DocuTech systems were still reported active worldwide as of 2015.

Reference scope

This model page records only facts that can be traced to an authoritative source — manufacturer press materials and encyclopedic references. Any specification that cannot be sourced, including current pricing or availability, is omitted rather than estimated. Superlative and "first" characterizations are presented as attributed claims, not stated as bare fact. This is not a buying guide. The sources consulted are listed below.