Description
HP DesignJet Z9+ 44-inch PostScript Dual Roll Large Format Printer (W3Z72A)
Premium 44-inch Professional Photo & Graphics Printer for Exceptional Colour, Fine Art and High-End Large Format Printing
The HP DesignJet Z9+ 44-inch PostScript Large Format Printer is a premium professional graphics and photographic printer designed for photographers, fine art studios, graphic designers, print service providers, retailers, GIS professionals and creative businesses that demand exceptional colour accuracy and outstanding large-format image quality.
With a maximum print width of 1118 mm / 44 inches, the HP DesignJet Z9+ combines a sophisticated 9-colour pigment ink system, advanced HP Pixel Control imaging technology, an embedded spectrophotometer and professional Adobe PostScript and PDF processing.
Its high-definition print system delivers exceptional fine detail, smooth tonal transitions and vivid colour reproduction across a broad range of photographic, fine art and graphics applications.
For businesses where colour quality is the priority, the HP DesignJet Z9+ provides a powerful professional platform for producing everything from gallery photography and fine art reproductions to posters, architectural presentations, retail graphics and detailed GIS maps.
Key Features
Professional 44-inch / 1118 mm Large Format Printing
The HP DesignJet Z9+ supports media up to 1118 mm / 44 inches wide, giving photographers, artists and graphics professionals the ability to produce impressive large-format work in-house.
Ideal applications include:
- Professional photography
- Fine art reproductions
- Gallery prints
- Exhibition graphics
- Posters
- Retail graphics
- Point-of-sale displays
- Marketing materials
- Architectural renderings
- Interior design presentations
- Corporate graphics
- GIS maps
- Satellite imagery
- Aerial photography
- Backlit displays
- Canvas prints
- Presentation graphics
The 44-inch format provides considerably more creative flexibility than a 24-inch printer while maintaining professional photographic quality.
Advanced 9-Colour Pigment Ink System
The HP DesignJet Z9+ uses an advanced 9-colour pigment ink system engineered for demanding photographic and graphics applications.
The ink set includes:
- Cyan
- Chromatic Blue
- Magenta
- Chromatic Green
- Yellow
- Chromatic Red
- Gray
- Photo Black
- Matte Black
This expanded colour set provides greater colour capability than conventional four- or six-colour large-format printers.
The addition of Chromatic Red, Chromatic Green and Chromatic Blue helps reproduce vivid, saturated colours while maintaining smooth tonal transitions and excellent detail.
This makes the Z9+ particularly suitable for professional photography, artwork reproduction and brand-sensitive graphics.
HP Vivid Photo Pigment Inks
The Z9+ uses professional HP Vivid Photo pigment inks, designed to provide excellent colour quality, strong black density and durable output.
Pigment-based ink technology makes the printer particularly well suited to applications where professional image quality and print longevity are important.
Typical applications include:
- Gallery photography
- Fine art reproduction
- Exhibition prints
- Commercial photography
- Premium posters
- Portfolio prints
- Corporate graphics
- High-end presentations
The expanded pigment ink set provides the foundation for sophisticated professional colour reproduction.
Optional Gloss Enhancer
The HP DesignJet Z9+ platform supports optional HP Gloss Enhancer for premium photographic applications.
Gloss Enhancer helps improve gloss uniformity across glossy and semi-gloss media by reducing visible differences between heavily inked and lightly inked areas.
This is particularly beneficial for:
- High-end photographic prints
- Gallery work
- Exhibition photography
- Portfolio printing
- Gloss photo paper
- Satin and semi-gloss media
For photographers and print studios producing premium glossy work, Gloss Enhancer can help deliver a smoother and more professional finished appearance.
HP Pixel Control
The HP DesignJet Z9+ incorporates HP Pixel Control, an advanced imaging pipeline designed to provide precise control over colour combinations.
This helps reproduce:
- Smooth gradients
- Fine tonal transitions
- Natural skin tones
- Shadow detail
- Vibrant colour
- Subtle photographic information
- Complex graphic elements
Pixel Control is particularly valuable for demanding photographic and fine art applications where small tonal differences can significantly affect the appearance of the final image.
High-Definition HP Printhead Technology
The Z9+ incorporates high-definition HP printheads designed to reproduce extremely fine detail and smooth colour transitions.
The printing system contains 21,120 nozzles in total, providing precise ink placement across the printer's expanded colour set.
This helps reproduce:
- Fine photographic textures
- Hair and fabric detail
- Small text
- Architectural detail
- Fine artwork
- Map labels
- Smooth gradients
- Complex graphics
The result is crisp, detailed output suitable for close viewing.
Up to 2400 × 1200 Optimised dpi
The HP DesignJet Z9+ provides print resolution up to 2400 × 1200 optimised dpi, giving professional users the detail required for premium photography, artwork and graphics.
This high-resolution capability is particularly useful for images containing:
- Fine textures
- Detailed shadows
- Small graphic elements
- Complex map information
- Architectural details
- High-resolution raster images
- Fine art textures
Embedded Spectrophotometer
The HP DesignJet Z9+ features an embedded spectrophotometer designed to support professional colour calibration and media profiling.
Colour measurement is an important component of professional print production because it helps maintain predictable output across different jobs and media.
Benefits include:
- Improved colour consistency
- Better media calibration
- Greater repeatability
- Improved colour matching
- Greater confidence in colour-critical printing
- Less reliance on separate external measurement equipment
This is particularly valuable for photographers, artists, designers and print service providers producing repeat customer work.
Professional Colour Accuracy
The combination of HP Pixel Control, nine pigment inks and the embedded spectrophotometer gives the Z9+ sophisticated colour-management capability.
This helps businesses maintain consistent colour across:
- Professional photography
- Fine art reproductions
- Corporate branding
- Retail campaigns
- Portfolio printing
- Repeat customer orders
- Marketing graphics
Reliable colour reproduction can reduce unnecessary reprints while improving customer confidence.
Outstanding Professional Photography
The HP DesignJet Z9+ is designed specifically for demanding photographic production.
Its expanded pigment ink set helps reproduce subtle colour differences and smooth tonal transitions across large photographic images.
Typical photographic applications include:
- Portrait photography
- Wedding photography
- Landscape photography
- Fashion photography
- Architectural photography
- Commercial photography
- Fine art photography
- Gallery prints
- Exhibition prints
- Portfolio work
- Large photographic enlargements
The generous 44-inch print width enables photographers to create impressive gallery-scale images directly in-house.
Fine Art Reproduction
The Z9+ is also an excellent choice for professional fine art and giclée-style reproduction.
Compatible applications include printing on:
- Fine art paper
- Textured art paper
- Matte fine art media
- Canvas
- Premium photographic media
Its pigment inks, high-resolution imaging and integrated colour-management system provide the tools required for demanding artwork reproduction.
Artists, galleries and specialist print studios can use the Z9+ for both photographic and fine art production from a single platform.
Professional Poster & Retail Graphics Production
The HP DesignJet Z9+ is equally capable of producing high-impact commercial graphics.
Applications include:
- Retail posters
- Promotional graphics
- Point-of-sale displays
- Marketing posters
- Event graphics
- Corporate presentations
- Exhibition graphics
- Presentation boards
The combination of strong colour reproduction and 44-inch output makes it an excellent in-house production solution for businesses that require premium promotional material.
Excellent GIS & Mapping Capability
Although the Z9+ is primarily a premium photographic and graphics printer, its high-resolution output and broad colour capability also make it extremely capable for GIS and mapping applications.
Suitable applications include:
- Topographic maps
- Geological maps
- Mining maps
- Environmental mapping
- Utility maps
- Infrastructure plans
- Urban planning
- Satellite imagery
- Aerial photography
- Colour-coded geographic data
The 44-inch width provides ample capacity for large, detailed maps while the expanded colour system helps differentiate complex geographic information.
Fast Professional Graphics Production
The HP DesignJet Z9+ combines premium image quality with professional production speed.
For the original W3Z72A model, HP specifies maximum speeds of:
Plain Media – Fast: up to 71.4 m²/hr
Coated Media – Normal: up to 17.2 m²/hr
Glossy Media – Best: up to 4.5 m²/hr.
The newer Z9+ 44-inch Plus Edition increases normal coated-media productivity to approximately 22.4 m²/hr, while retaining 71.4 m²/hr fast plain-media and 4.5 m²/hr best glossy-media performance.
Adobe PostScript
The HP DesignJet Z9+ provides professional Adobe PostScript processing for sophisticated graphics workflows.
PostScript is particularly useful when printing documents containing:
- Vector graphics
- Embedded fonts
- Transparency
- Complex page layouts
- High-resolution imagery
- Mixed raster and vector content
- Professional graphic design elements
This gives designers and print professionals greater confidence when outputting complex files from professional design applications.
Adobe PDF Print Engine
The Z9+ also incorporates professional Adobe PDF processing, including the Adobe PDF Print Engine on supported configurations.
This enables sophisticated PDFs to be processed efficiently while helping preserve:
- Embedded fonts
- Transparency
- Vector objects
- Raster images
- Colour information
- Complex graphic layouts
For print businesses regularly receiving customer-supplied PDFs, reliable native file processing can help simplify production and reduce unexpected output issues.
Powerful File Processing
High-resolution photographs, fine artwork and sophisticated graphics can contain enormous amounts of data.
The HP DesignJet Z9+ provides:
128 GB virtual file-processing memory
and
500 GB self-encrypting internal storage.
This onboard processing capability helps the printer handle complex jobs efficiently without unnecessarily tying up users' workstations.
It is particularly useful for:
- High-resolution photography
- Large PDF files
- Fine art reproductions
- Complex graphics
- Large GIS maps
- Raster-heavy files
- Multi-job print queues
Single-Roll Media Handling
The HP DesignJet Z9+ 44-inch is the single-roll model in the Z9+ family.
This makes it an excellent choice for businesses that require premium image quality but do not need to keep two different media rolls loaded simultaneously.
The printer supports roll widths up to 1118 mm / 44 inches, together with sheet-fed media.
An automatic horizontal cutter helps separate finished prints from the roll after printing.
For businesses requiring dual-roll operation and automated vertical cutting, the HP DesignJet Z9+dr is the appropriate model.
Wide Range of Professional Media
The HP DesignJet Z9+ supports a broad selection of professional printing media.
Suitable categories include:
- Gloss photo paper
- Satin photo paper
- Semi-gloss photo paper
- Matte photo paper
- Fine art paper
- Fine art canvas
- Coated paper
- Heavyweight coated paper
- Presentation paper
- Self-adhesive media
- Polypropylene
- Backlit media
- Banner media
- Display graphics media
This gives photographers, artists and graphics professionals the flexibility to produce many applications from one printer.
300 ml High-Capacity Ink Cartridges
The Z9+ uses 300 ml professional ink cartridges, providing useful capacity for demanding large-format production.
Higher-capacity cartridges help:
- Reduce cartridge changes
- Maintain production during long jobs
- Improve workflow efficiency
- Support high-volume photographic production
- Reduce operator intervention
They are particularly beneficial to print service providers, photography studios and graphics departments producing large images throughout the day.
HP Click Workflow
The HP DesignJet Z9+ supports HP Click, helping simplify large-format printing for both experienced operators and occasional users.
HP Click allows users to preview and submit jobs more easily, helping identify layout problems before expensive media and ink are consumed.
Benefits include:
- Simple job submission
- Print previews
- Multi-file job preparation
- Reduced printing errors
- Reduced media waste
- Streamlined production
Professional Security
The HP DesignJet Z9+ incorporates a 500 GB self-encrypting internal drive and professional device-management capabilities.
This helps protect stored customer and business data while making the printer suitable for professionally managed network environments.
Applications can include:
- Professional print studios
- Corporate graphics departments
- Government organisations
- Photography businesses
- Architectural practices
- GIS departments
Technical Specifications
| Specification | HP DesignJet Z9+ 44-inch PostScript |
|---|---|
| Original Product Number | W3Z72A |
| Plus Edition Product Number | W3Z72D |
| Printer Type | Professional Photo & Graphics Large Format Printer |
| Functions | |
| Maximum Print Width | 1118 mm / 44 inches |
| Print Technology | HP Thermal Inkjet |
| Maximum Print Resolution | 2400 × 1200 optimised dpi |
| Fast Speed – Plain Media | Up to 71.4 m²/hr |
| Normal – Coated Media, Original | Up to 17.2 m²/hr |
| Normal – Coated Media, Plus Edition | Up to 22.4 m²/hr |
| Best – Glossy Media | Up to 4.5 m²/hr |
| Ink System | 9-colour pigment ink system |
| Ink Colours | Cyan, Chromatic Blue, Magenta, Chromatic Green, Yellow, Chromatic Red, Gray, Photo Black, Matte Black |
| Gloss Enhancer | Optional |
| Ink Cartridge Capacity | 300 ml |
| Printhead Nozzles | 21,120 total |
| Colour Technology | HP Pixel Control |
| Spectrophotometer | Embedded |
| PostScript | Adobe PostScript |
| Adobe PDF Processing | Adobe PDF Print Engine |
| File-Processing Memory | 128 GB virtual |
| Internal Storage | 500 GB self-encrypting drive |
| Roll Configuration | Single Roll |
| Maximum Roll Width | 1118 mm / 44 inches |
| Sheet Feed | Yes |
| Automatic Horizontal Cutter | Yes |
| Vertical Trimmer | No |
| Dual Roll | No |
| Network Connectivity | Gigabit Ethernet |
| Direct USB Printing | Supported |
| HP Click | Supported |
| Typical Applications | Photography, fine art, posters, retail graphics, GIS, maps and presentations |
