Abstract: To address brand mark misregistration, particularly under variable-speed operating conditions, and the high maintenance workload of the online printing system in the ZJ119 filter cigarette maker, an online registration and rod cutoff system was developed, and the original online printing unit was removed. The system uses pre-printed cigarette paper, i.e., special cigarette paper on which the brand mark pattern is printed in advance and equally spaced detectable registration marks are incorporated. A color mark sensor was used to detect the spacing of registration markers in real time. Meanwhile, a phase compensation scheme based on a paper feed virtual axis and a position-type PID control algorithm with self-tuning based on speed intervals were introduced to dynamically adjust the cigarette rod cutoff position during operation. The system was evaluated using a cigarette brand produced at Hangzhou Cigarette Factory. The results showed that after the adoption of the pre-printed cigarette paper and the online registration and rod cutoff system, the cigarette reject rate under variable-speed operating conditions decreased from 9.0%-10.0% to 1.5%-2.0%, while the average maintenance time of the paper feeding system decreased from 31.0 minute/shift to 1.3 minute/shift. The system can support the improvement in cigarette appearance quality and the effective operating rate of the equipment, and provide the equipment capability required for filter cigarette making during further development and wider adoption of pre-printed cigarette paper.