Digital printers have changed the way people create and share documents. Now DuPont has created a digital printer for fabric, promising to transform the way people make swimsuits, purses, slipcovers and curtains.

Interior designer Jeanelle Dech and her husband, Larry, became one of DuPont's first customers, paying $175,000 for the printer last summer. They set up a new business, Adaptive Textiles, promising to print any pattern, in any color, in any quantity, on almost any fabric.

Finding the right fabric for her clients used to be the hardest part of Dech's job. Fabrics are often out of stock or unavailable in the right patterns or colors. Then, at a trade show, the West Chester, Pa., designer saw the truck-size digital printer called the DuPont Artistri.

"Because of this technology, designers will have a flexibility they never had before, and they can give customers what they always wanted," Dech said.

FRED COMEGYS / THE NEWS JOURNAL Adaptive Textiles employees Larry Dech and Mandy Brewer work on customizing fabrics using a digital printer.

The printer also promises to limit Dech's risk. Instead of loading up on certain fabric patterns on the hope they will sell, Dech just buys DuPont's special ink and blank cloth and prints fabric to order.

Because patterns can be made freehand on a computer-drawing program, customers can design their own patterns, Dech said. The floral designs of the Dechs' 10-year-old daughter, Corynne, are the basis of Dech's Adaptive Kids fabric line.

DuPont isn't the first company to make a digital fabric printer, but Dech said others she reviewed cost millions of dollars. Cheaper ones, used mostly to print on banners, proved slow and unreliable, she said.

DuPont is the world's largest digital ink developer and manufacturer, said Kathleen Hall, global business manager for Artistri. The company already commands over half of the market in desktop printing ink, supplying ink to all the major printer manufacturers. The idea for the Artistri emerged when the company sought new markets for its digital ink technology, Hall said.

DuPont's challenge was to make a colorfast ink and a printer that could reliably handle stretch fabrics. Though DuPont makes both the printer and the ink, the company's profits lie in ink sales, Hall said. By purchasing one of four inks, a customer can print on silk, cotton, linen, wool or synthetic fabrics.

In traditional screen printing, a stenciled image is placed on a porous screen. Ink is forced through the screen onto the fabric. The process requires layering one screen for each color, adding expense for each color used. The Artistri, by contrast, can print 16 million colors by combining a handful of inks.

Hall also trumpets the printer's environmental benefits. In screen printing, about 60 percent of the ink goes down the drain, and large amounts of water are used.

The Artistri uses no water and wastes no ink, Hall said.

DuPont scored a coup by selling an Artistri to Italy's Mantero fashion house. The world's leading designer of silk apparel, Mantero creates ties and scarves for many big-name designers.

With the Artistri, "We can freely use color without directly impacting the cost of production," said Carlo Mantero, head of new technologies at the fashion house. "The original idea of the designer is translated to the fabric with less compromise."

By allowing custom pattern design, the Artistri helps designers stay ahead of the mass market, said Nancy Reams, a Va., designer.

"It costs a lot to decorate a house these days," Reams said. "If people are going to pay that much money, then they should get what they want."