
MUTOH Offers an Online Product Catalog of Award Winning Printers
Take a look at the all new MUTOH Product Catalog & find out more about these award winning wide format printers.
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MUTOH America Heats Up the Printing Industry with its Launch of the New XpertJet 1682SR Pro Dual Head Eco-Solvent Wide Format Printer
The new dual-staggered AccuFine HD printheads on the MUTOH 1662SR Pro have the power to print up to 89% faster over the current model.
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Pinnacle Product Awards for 2022 – Honoring Industry Product Innovation and Excellence
Honoring Industry Product Innovation and Excellence
The Pinnacle Product Awards recognize products that improve or advance the printing industry with exceptional contributions in quality, capability, and productivity.
Okay, but what are these awards about? Should the public even pay attention to these awards? Aren’t the companies that receive awards just buying publicity?
In this blog, I want to show you what these awards are really about. I want to show how they are judged, why companies enter and why the public should indeed take these awards as recognition of “product innovation and excellence”!
“Companies that win awards are just buying publicity!”
Let me start by saying, no one who enters this competition is buying the awards! No one! If that were the case, some of the smaller companies would always lose and in fact many of the awards actually go to smaller companies! In addition, not every product qualifies to enter.
Here is what is required to enter, right off the competition pages:
“Eligibility
In order to be considered for a Pinnacle Product Award, the product* must meet the following criteria. It must:
- Be available for sale in the marketplace.
- Fit into one of the published competition categories.
*Products on the market more than three years will receive a deduction from the judges’ score to bring newer products into focus.”
So, this is about newer technology although established products can still compete. It’s also about products that are for sale in the market today. That makes it relevant to the public looking for the right product for their shop.
There are numerous categories as well, visit: https://productentry.printing.org/categories/ to see all the categories. In this blog, however, I’ll focus on the wide format printer categories, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t check all the category winners because to qualify and then win is guided by some strict rules and measurements as well as judging from industry professionals.
“How is the competition judged?”
Again, from the award site:
“Each entry is reviewed and scored by an independent panel of judges made up of industry experts. All judges have demonstratable expertise in the evaluation of industry technology, products, and output capabilities.
We understand that conflicts of interest are a potential threat, and we take these conflicts very seriously. We do everything in our power to minimize occurrences of conflicts during the judging process.
PRINTING United Alliance does not influence the judges in any way. We select a diverse body of judges who are objective, respected, and knowledgeable in the industry. Decisions are entirely in the hands of the judges, who select and vote on the entries through an independent process.”
How are wide format printers judged?
For printing devices, judging is done by a machine, well kind of. Print manufacturers who enter the competition are required to print a standard IT8 patch of color swatches. The IT8 plus spot colors are read using a X-Rite iPro 2 and Maxwell software and the patches are recorded. Numbers are totaled and the best in each category is the winning recipient, awarding the output device that will produce the closest color to the industry standard.
Sounds simple right? it’s not! The printer manufacturer must create profiles for the media, adjust settings in the RIP software and make numerous other adjustments to produce a print that can be used in the competition. This can take numerous iterations until the manufacturer believes they have the right result to enter. Basically, the print reflects the best that the printer can do.
I might also add that even for those entries that do not receive an award, sometimes the competition can be very close in terms of results.
What does winning in a category mean?
For the winners, being awarded as the competition winner means the wide format printer has met or exceeded the industry standards for color printing output. For the consumer, it means that when choosing the winning printer, you can be assured that an independent test has confirmed that the printer is capable of printing to the highest standards.
MUTOH Wins Five Pinnacle Awards Two Years in a Row!
MUTOH has entered its printers into this contest each year for over a decade and won numerous times, however in the last two years they have won 5 awards each year. In 2022, the MUTOH printers that were awarded the Pinnacle Product Awards are shown in the image here:
ValueJet-2638X 104” Eco Solvent Printer– Roll-to-Roll Solvent/Latex (over 80 in.)
XpertJet-1642WRP 64” Dye Sublimation Printer– RTR Dye Sublimation on Textile (under $50K)
XpertJet-661UF 19”x23” UV-LED Printer– Tabletop Flatbed (Industrial/Small Item Decoration)
PeformanceJet-2508UF 4’x8’ UV-LED Printer– UV/Latex Flatbed (under $100K)
ValueJet-1638UH Mark II 64” UV-LED Hybrid Printer– UV/Latex Hybrid¹ (under $100K)
MUTOH has always taken great pride in the design and manufacturing of its made-in-Japan quality products and top-notch service. MUTOH is committed to constant innovation and leading advancements in technology.
“MUTOH is happy to accept 5 more Pinnacle awards this year for our best-in-class printers” states Brian Phipps, President, and GM of MUTOH America Inc. “We know we have great products but it’s nice to have the industry recognition with these beautiful pinnacle awards supporting us.”
Check out all the MUTOH wide format printer families at www.mutoh.com . Be sure to join us at the upcoming Printing United tradeshow in Las Vegas, NV on October 19-21, 2022 Booth C10124. Some of our color experts will be there and can give you a person demonstration of our products.
About MUTOH America Inc
MUTOH Industries, Ltd. founded in 1952 in Tokyo, Japan, celebrates over 70 years of business beginning as a manufacturer and distributor of mechanical drafting products. MUTOH America, Inc. is a leading manufacturer of wide-format printers and plotting cutters. MUTOH’s line of Eco-Solvent, UV-LED, Textile and Dye-Sublimation printers are known for their speed, quality and smart printing technologies. Whether you’re looking to print vehicle wraps, banners, signage, ADA compliant, custom apparel, fabrics, promotional items and more, MUTOH has a printer to fit your needs.

Design Tools for Vehicle Wraps – Better, Faster Design
These vehicle wrap design tools will allow you to create wrap designs faster and better with less frustration.
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MUTOH’s VerteLith™ RIP Software Wins Prestigious EDP Award
MUTOH’s VerteLith™ RIP Software Wins Prestigious EDP Award. VerteLith is provided fee of charge with most MUTOH wide format printers.
Read More1 More Opportunity to Join The Awesome Color Journey Webinar
Here’s a video summary of what you will learn in the vital webinar about The Color Journey. We will show you practical ways to control color from the image source all the way through to the install location! This is a must-see and it will be recorded so if you register you will get to see the replay forever!
The Webinar is Tuesday Nov 16th so this is the last opportunity to watch it live!
SECRET: We will be announcing something very special during this webinar!
Don’t worry it hasn’t happened yet but after tomorrow it will be a recording!
Nov 16th 2021
Cost $25/Person
Full access to the live webinar and watch the replay forever!

Fellers Sponsors a Free Webinar – The Quickest Way to Increase Your Business
Fellers Webinar – The Quickest Way to Increase Your Business
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How Ransomware Can Hurt Your Sign & Print Shop & 3 Things You Can Do About It
How Ransomware Can Hurt Your Sign & Print Shop & 3 Things You Can Do About It
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MUTOH HAS DONE IT AGAIN! Multiple Product of the Year Awards in 2021!
MUTOH America Recognized for Excellence for 10th Year in a Row By PRINTING United Alliance
PHOENIX September 28, 2021 – MUTOH America, Inc., an industry leader in wide‐format printers, has been honored for the 10th year in a row by the PRINTING United Alliance for product excellence and quality. For 2021, MUTOH has won five Pinnacle Product Awards, which recognizes products that improve or advance the printing industry with exceptional contributions in quality, capability, and productivity. Entries are evaluated by a highly qualified panel of judges from across the printing industry in more than 58 categories including analog, digital, output, and non‐output. These honors were formerly known as Product of the Year awards.
MUTOH has proudly won five awards in the following output categories this year:
- XpertJet 1641SR 64in Eco‐Solvent Printer – Roll‐to‐Roll Solvent/Latex (under 80 in.)
- ValueJet 2638X 104 in Eco‐Solvent Printer – Roll‐to‐Roll Solvent/Latex (over 80 in.)
- XpertJet 661UF 23×19 UV/LED Flatbed Printer – Tabletop Flatbed (Industrial/Small Item Decoration)
- ValueJet 1638UH Mark II 64” Hybrid UV/LED Printer – UV/Latex Hybrid (under $100K)
- XpertJet 1682WR 64” Dye‐Sublimation Printer – Roll‐to‐Roll Dye Sublimation on Textile (under $50K)
About MUTOH
The Best Online Training Course for Wide Format Printing
In addition to award-winning printers, did you know that MUTOH also offers the best online course on just about any subject for wide-format printing? Learn to vehicle wrap, learn about color management, FlexiSIGN, Photoshop, and much more!

Preparing for the Windows 11 Update
Sign and Print Shops - Get Ready for the Windows 11 Update Now!
Whether you choose to update Windows from 10 to 11 or not, at some point you’ll probably have no choice. Some may even have their system set up to do so automatically. Yep, you wake up expecting a regular workday, go to the shop, and BOOM!, an entirely new Windows update has happened and you wonder if this will affect your design and RIP software. Your stomach feels like jello as you double-click that design software and wait for the verdict!
Ways to Minimize the Stress & Protect Your Work
BACK UP YOUR SYSTEM NOW!
You’ve heard it for years and some have ignored it for years! BACK UP YOUR COMPUTER NOW! Let me repeat that….BACK UP YOUR COMPUTER NOW!
Come on folks, you’ve invested thousands of hours in your work. Are you going to let an update destroy your workflow? I’m not saying that it will, but if there is some kind of glitch in the update, or if your software doesn’t seem to be working well with the new version, with a backup you can at least go back to what did.

Create a Restore Point
Do this now as well. A restore point is like a snapshot of your system and can allow you to go back to a point where things were working. Some systems do this automatically when new software gets installed, for instance. But you can also do so manually. Watch the video below for a quick tutorial.
The Windows 11 Update
Let’s cover some of the Windows 11 update features. There are lots of articles if you just search Windows 11 updates, but here are a few features. While some of these may not seem to be important to your business, like gaming features, the changes could in fact affect things like video performance, RAM usage, Hard Drive management, and more.
Your workflow in Windows may change and just getting familiar with a new interface, for instance, may slow you down a bit. So enjoy the summary below, and just think in terms of “How will this new feature affect my workflow?”
Redesigned for productivity, creativity, and ease

We’ve simplified the design and user experience to empower your productivity and inspire your creativity. It’s modern, fresh, clean, and beautiful. From the new Start button and taskbar to each sound, font, and icon, everything was done intentionally to put you in control and bring a sense of calm and ease. We put Start at the center and made it easier to quickly find what you need. Start utilizes the power of the cloud and Microsoft 365 to show you your recent files no matter what platform or device you were viewing them on earlier, even if it was on an Android or iOS device.

Windows has always been about helping you work how you want, by offering the flexibility of multiple windows and the ability to snap apps side by side. New in Windows 11, we’re introducing Snap Layouts, Snap Groups, and Desktops to provide an even more powerful way to multitask and stay on top of what you need to get done. These are new features designed to help you organize your windows and optimize your screen real estate so you can see what you need just the way you want in a layout that’s visually clean. You can also create separate Desktops for each part of your life and customize them to your liking – imagine having a Desktop for work, gaming or school.

Windows 11 cuts through complexity and brings you simplicity.
A faster way to connect to the people you care about

Another critical part of bringing you closer to what you love is bringing you closer to the people you love. The last 18 months drove new behavior for how we create meaningful connections with people digitally. Even as we start to return to more in-person interaction, we want to continue to make it easy for people to stay close to each other no matter where they are. And we don’t want the device or platform you’re on to be a barrier.
With Windows 11, we’re excited to introduce Chat from Microsoft Teams integrated into the taskbar. Now you can instantly connect through text, chat, voice, or video with all of your personal contacts, anywhere, no matter the platform or device they’re on, across Windows, Android, or iOS. If the person you’re connecting to on the other end hasn’t downloaded the Teams app, you can still connect with them via two-way SMS.
Windows 11 also gives you a more natural way to connect with friends and family through Teams, allowing you to instantly mute and unmute, or start presenting directly from the taskbar.
Delivering the best PC gaming experiences yet

If you’re a gamer, Windows 11 is made for you. Gaming has always been fundamental to what Windows is all about. Today, hundreds of millions of people around the world game on Windows and find joy and connection with loved ones and friends through play. Windows 11 unlocks the full potential of your system’s hardware, putting some of the latest gaming technology to work for you. Like: DirectX 12 Ultimate, which can enable breathtaking, immersive graphics at high frame rates; DirectStorage for faster load times and more detailed game worlds; and Auto HDR for a wider, more vivid range of colors for a truly captivating visual experience. Nothing has changed in our commitment to hardware compatibility – Windows 11 supports your favorite PC gaming accessories and peripherals. With Xbox Game Pass for PC or Ultimate, gamers get access to over 100 high-quality PC games with new games added all the time, and it’s still just as easy to find people to play with, no matter if they’re playing on a PC or console.
To learn more about what Windows 11 means for gamers, check out Xbox Wire.
A faster way to get the information you care about

Windows 11 brings you closer to the news and information you care about faster with Widgets – a new personalized feed powered by AI and best-in-class browser performance from Microsoft Edge. Even when we’re at our most focused and creative we still need breaks – a moment to check in with the outside world or give ourselves a mental reset. Today, we often pick up our phones to check the news, weather or notifications. Now, you can open a similarly curated view directly from your desktop. When you open your personalized feed it slides across your screen like a sheet of glass so it doesn’t disrupt what you’re doing. For creators and publishers, Widgets also opens new real estate within Windows to deliver personalized content. Our aspiration is to create a vibrant pipeline for global brands and local creators alike, in a way that both consumers and creators can benefit.
An all-new Microsoft Store where your favorite apps and entertainment come together

The new Microsoft Store is your single trusted location for apps and content to watch, create, play, work and learn. It’s been rebuilt for speed and with an all-new design that is beautiful and simple to use. Not only will we bring you more apps than ever before, we’re also making all content – apps, games, shows, movies – easier to search for and discover with curated stories and collections. We’re excited to soon be welcoming leading first and third-party apps like Microsoft Teams, Visual Studio, Disney+, Adobe Creative Cloud, Zoom and Canva to the Microsoft Store – all offering incredible experiences to entertain, inspire and connect you. When you download an app from the Store you have the peace of mind of knowing it’s been tested for security and family safety.

We’re also pumped to announce that we are bringing Android apps to Windows for the first time. Starting later this year, people will be able to discover Android apps in the Microsoft Store and download them through the Amazon Appstore – imagine recording and posting a video from TikTok or using Khan Academy Kids for virtual learning right from your PC. We’ll have more to share about this experience in the coming months. We look forward to this partnership with Amazon and Intel using their Intel Bridge technology.
Creating a more open ecosystem unlocking new opportunity for developers and creators
We are taking steps to further open the Microsoft Store to unlock greater economic opportunity for creators and developers. We’re enabling developers and independent software vendors (ISVs) to bring their apps regardless of whether they’re built as a Win32, Progressive Web App (PWA), or Universal Windows App (UWP) or any other app framework, creating an opportunity to reach and engage with more people. We’re also announcing a progressive change to our revenue share policies where app developers can now bring their own commerce into our Store and keep 100% of the revenue – Microsoft takes nothing. App developers can still use our commerce with competitive revenue share of 85/15. We believe creating a more open ecosystem ultimately benefits our customers – giving them secure, frictionless access to the apps, games, movies, shows and web content they want and need.
To learn more about the changes to the Microsoft Store, visit this Windows Blog post.
If you want to learn more about what Windows 11 means for developers, visit the Windows Developer Blog.
Faster, more secure and familiar for IT
For IT, Windows 11 is built on the consistent, compatible and familiar Windows 10 foundation you know. You’ll plan for, prepare and deploy Windows 11 just as you do today with Windows 10. Upgrading to Windows 11 will be like taking a Windows 10 update. The familiar management experiences you have in place today – like Microsoft Endpoint Manager, cloud configuration, Windows Update for Business and Autopilot – will support your environment of tomorrow as you integrate Windows 11 into your estate.
Just as with Windows 10, we are deeply committed to app compatibility, which is a core design tenet of Windows 11. We stand behind our promise that your applications will work on Windows 11 with App Assure, a service that helps customers with 150 or more users fix any app issues they might run into at no additional cost.
Windows 11 is also secure by design, with new built-in security technologies that will add protection from the chip to the cloud, while enabling productivity and new experiences. Windows 11 provides a Zero Trust-ready operating system to protect data and access across devices. We have worked closely with our OEM and silicon partners to raise security baselines to meet the needs of the evolving threat landscape and the new hybrid work world.
You can learn more about Windows 11 as the operating system for hybrid work and learning in the Microsoft 365 blog.
It’s a great time to buy a PC

Since day one of developing Windows 11, we have been working closely with our hardware and silicon partners for seamless integration across software and hardware. That co-engineering begins with innovation in the silicon. From AMD and the incredible graphics depth brought by the Ryzen processors to the incredible performance of Intel’s 11th gen and Evo Processors, to Qualcomm’s AI prowess, 5G and Arm support, the innovation of our silicon partners brings together the best of Windows 11 with the largest hardware ecosystem in the world.
And with Dell, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, Surface and others, we’ve worked to ensure most PCs* you can buy today will be ready for Windows 11 – across a variety of form factors and price points.
Together, we’ve tuned Windows 11 to not only be optimized for speed and efficiency, but to take advantage of improved experiences with touch, inking and voice.
When you use Windows 11 on a tablet without a keyboard, we’ve improved the experience for touch, creating more space between the icons in the taskbar, adding bigger touch targets and subtle visual cues to make resizing and moving windows easier, as well as adding gestures. We’re also enabling haptics to make using your pen even more engaging and immersive – allowing you to hear and feel the vibrations as you click through and edit or sketch. Lastly, we’ve brought forward enhancements in voice typing. Windows 11 is incredible at recognizing what you say; it can automatically punctuate for you, and comes with voice commands. This is a fantastic feature for when you want to take a break from typing and speak your ideas instead.
Windows 11 will be available through a free upgrade for eligible Windows 10 PCs and on new PCs beginning this holiday. To check if your current Windows 10 PC is eligible for the free upgrade to Windows 11, visit Windows.com to download the PC Health Check app. We’re also working with our retail partners to make sure Windows 10 PCs you buy today are ready for the upgrade to Windows 11. The free upgrade will begin to roll out to eligible Windows 10 PCs this holiday and continuing into 2022. And next week, we’ll begin to share an early build of Windows 11 to the Windows Insider Program – this is a passionate community of Windows fans whose feedback is important to us.
This is just the beginning
Windows is more than just an operating system; it’s a fabric woven into our lives and in our work. It’s where we connect with people, it’s where we learn, work and play. Over time it’s remained familiar and adapted to us. We hope you’re as pumped as we are for Windows 11.
We can’t wait to see what Windows 11 empowers people to do and inspires them to create.
For the best variety of online learning courses related to wide format printing, be sure to visit our MUTOH Learning Experience at http://www.mutoh.thinkific.com