A former jobbing printer is moving into brand new markets now it has the ability to use a hi-tech digital press.

Wheelden Print, which started in 1946, has just spent £150,000 installing some of the latest 21st century technology which gives the Wakefield Road firm a technological advantage over its rivals.

The digital equipment, which arrives this week, allows the firm to turn jobs round quicker and compliments the service it currently offers customers.

The company, which has grown since it was bought out in 1994, is also planning to add to the 16 staff it currently employs as the business expands further.

The firm is also on the verge of moving into global sales which would involve a customer using a website - yet to be developed + which would allow them to choose a design, specify a print run, work out a price and order the goods over the Internet.

In the meantime, the company, whose directors are Peter Minchella and Chris Cox, is planning to promote the wider range of capabilities the Xerox DocuColor 2000 20/60 press gives.

Chris Cox said: "We can now do short runs and provide better colour for our customers as well as do medium and long runs - whatever people need. The facility also makes us more appealing to firms involved in marketing who want to produce tightly targeted individually personalised mailings.

"The purchase of the equipment opens up a whole new world of business opportunities for us - and our customers. The machine's technology enables digital artwork to be converted straight to print without plates or films. This means that the huge Internet market is also available to us."

The firm, which was previously called E. Wheelden (Bradford) Ltd, was started by Elliot Wheelden who was a jobbing printer with premises on Manchester Road.

His business took off after a successful partnership with Fred Truelove who needed slips for his betting business. The company was forced to move into other forms of printing when betting firms started using in-house printers to produce their betting slips.

The firm was taken over by John Minchella 25 years ago and moved to Wibsey. Five years later it moved to its current premises in Wakefield Road. Six years ago, John Minchella's son, Peter, an accountant, and Chris Cox, who was in sales and marketing, bought the business from John Minchella and renamed it Wheelden Print.

Over the years the company has taken on extra staff and now has a number of prestigious clients including Bradford-based Sovereign Healthcare, Careers Bradford, Lee & Priestley solicitors and the Marriott Hollins Hotel in Baildon.