Canon imagePROGRAF iPF680

The iPF680 fits small architecture studios, engineering pods, survey teams, and construction offices that need color technical output without dedicating a room to the printer. Its 24-inch ceiling is well matched to detail sheets, reduced plan sets, presentation-ready site plans, and field copies where color calls out revisions, utilities, phasing, or discipline coordination.

HP-GL/2 and HP-RTL matter in older and mixed CAD environments. They give the printer a direct connection to common technical drawing languages, while GARO provides the native page-description path listed for this unit. Ethernet supports shared office use; USB and direct printing give an operator another route when the network is having one of its little moments.

Bottom line: This is a practical technical printer when 24-inch output is the normal job, not the occasional compromise.

The printer accepts plain paper, coated paper, cut sheets, and roll media, with supported media thickness from 0.003 to 0.031 inches. That range gives an AEC team latitude for ordinary bond drawings and heavier presentation-oriented sheets, provided the selected stock stays within the stated limits.

The five printing colors are black, matte black, cyan, magenta, and yellow. For AEC work, that is most relevant when a plain drawing needs legible linework plus color layers, redlines, utility routes, or coordination notes. The 256 MB of internal memory deserves context: it is a stated hardware fact, not a promise that every large, graphics-heavy PDF will arrive at the tray at the same pace.

Replacement items listed for this machine include Canon 6704B001, Canon 6705B001, Canon 6706B001, Canon 6707B001, and Canon 6708B001 inks, plus the Canon PF-04 print head and Canon MC-10 maintenance item. Keep those planned, not discovered during a bid deadline.

Bottom line: The media range and five-color system suit everyday technical documents, but the workflow remains a 24-inch, single-device workflow.

Stay with the iPF680 when its width matches the work and a shared color technical printer is the need. If your files regularly require 36-inch output, the Canon iPF710 36-in is the more relevant in-family width comparison. A 24-inch device cannot create the missing width by force of optimism.

Within the same 24-inch family, compare the Canon iPF670 24-in and Canon iPF685 24-in against the iPF680 using the functions your office actually uses. The supplied catalog data confirms their shared 24-inch class and resolution, but it does not establish a meaningful feature hierarchy by itself. For a side-by-side starting point, use the iPF680 and iPF685 comparison.

For IT, confirm driver deployment, print permissions, accounting requirements, and whether direct USB printing fits site policy. For the print-room lead, test the actual PDFs: a dense civil base map, a Revit export with transparency, and a marked-up bid sheet. That is where a printer stops being a line item and starts earning its keep.

Bottom line: Choose by drawing width and workflow, then validate with your nastiest real file.