New technology, business mergers and let's not forget PacPrint. 2017 has been a significant year for the printing industry. Read all about it here.

Some local paper merchants have been caught flatfooted by the rapidity and scale of pulp and paper price rises around the world with some having to play catch up next year issuing three, four and five price rises.

Workplace safety regulator SafeWork NSW has issued a number of notices regarding electrical safety and work systems as it continues to investigate a fatal accident at DIC Australia that left one man dead and two injured two weeks ago.

Australia Post has installed the country’s largest single rooftop solar power installation at the Sydney Parcel Facility in Chullora, which will save an estimated $800,000 a year in energy costs.

Kmart will use Afinia Label L301 desktop inkjet label printers (pictured) powered by HP technology to produce personalised labels for Vegemite and Nutella jars over Christmas this year, with the aim of promoting its bricks-and-mortar retail stores.

The NZ High Court has upheld a decision by the Commerce Commission to block a proposed merger of the country’s two leading newspaper publishers, NZME and Fairfax New Zealand. The companies are now considering an appeal.

Screen, together with Jet Technologies, will bring two new Trojan digital label presses to market in 2018. Both compact - one with inline finishing - they are 'right-sized' for the short-run and variable version label market.

Digital press manufacturers including EFI and HP should be aware the EU is likely to introduce tighter regulations for the recycling of plastic packaging as part of the its drive towards circular economies, writes consultant Laurel Brunner.

Peter Booth, director of Melbourne’s Fishprint, invested $1.4m in a new low-energy offset press in a bid to cut his soaring electricity charges. But despite managing to reduce consumption by a third, the business has been hit by another substantial increase in its power bills.

Australia Post is expecting its 'busiest Christmas ever', with online purchases driving a surge in parcel deliveries. The national mail carrier is delivering more than two million parcels per day, or 2700 per minute, at its peak this holiday season. No data on letters was available.

A cross section of the great and the good of the printing industry came together this week in Sydney as three allied organisations, Two Sides, Australian Catalogue Association and Apia pledged to work together to promote printing.

Magazines are going online right? Not if you are men’s style oracle D’Marge with its ‘Shut Up & Take My Money’ blog, where the reverse is true. The bits, bandwidth and HTML have become ink on paper and even a major airline has taken it up. Doris Prodanovic checks out the irony of it all.

Registration is open for EFI Connect 2018, which will be held in Las Vegas from January 23-26. Australian printers are being urged to attend what EFI describes as a 'must-see' user conference and networking event, which will give Australian printers a look over the horizon at the 'next big thing'.

ASX-listed direct mail and marketing services company Salmat has sold off its SMS business MessageNet for $14.8 million to Message4U, trading as MessageMedia. Proceeds from the sale will be used to pay down Salmat’s existing debt facility.

Epson has unveiled a “seeing, sensing, thinking, working” autonomous dual-arm robot named the WorkSense W-01 that it says will expand the scope of automated production. “We are refining our core technologies that combine sensors and smart features."

The NSW workplace safety regulator has called in engineering experts to examine a mixer blade after an accident at the DIC Australia ink factory in Sydney that left one man dead and two injured. A fundraiser has been set up for the victim's family.