First off, welcome one and all. This forum is designed to be a user to user, user to vendor, vendor to vendor, and whatever else you can think of discussion site for the print industry. That being said, sometimes a little background helps.

I am currently with a commercial printer. I joined the commercial print world approximately 1 year ago after working for Xerox. While at Xerox I primarily worked with the service organizations developing print applications, manufacturing processes, vi workflows, etc.

I personally spent time working on...Xerox products ranging from the DocuColor 12 to the Document Centre 460 to the DocuColor 2060, 2045, 6060, 5252, 8000 and Igen. I have worked with the Kodak DigiMaster e125 and Nexpress 2500.

Though I have not done work on the HP Indigo or various Canon products I have had a number of opportunities to see them in action first hand and on a few occasions work with them as intended output devices for projects I have worked on.

Along the lines of vi I have worked with VIPP and PS. In recent months / year I have done alot with Fusion Pro by Printables. I have also played a little bit with Printshop Mail, XMPie, Darwin and Lytrod.

From the workflow side much of my exposure lies with Prinergy and a bit with FreeFlow (if you can call it a workflow, but Xerox does).

I hope others will share a little about themselves to help us all understand there experience and background.

Cheers,
John

I have been in the printing world for over 10 years. Starting off in sales, selling printers and copiers for Xerox. Later, I became a color analyst for Xerox support all the color products. I left Xerox in 2004, leaving behind a customer support analyst and smart press production consultant for the iGen3. I joined my current company as the Technology Marketing Director and oversee our digital print division. We started with an iGen3 and later acquired a 2060 and this summer traded both in for 2 Kodak Nexpress 2500's with inline / offline bookletmaking and added a Digimaster E125 for black only work.

My VI experience started in the mainframe world, scarily jumped to word mailmerge, then formal training in postscript and VIPP. Learned VPS from creo/scitex days, dating back to the Spontane (later to be the Docucolor40). Today I use optimized pdf and ANSI spec PPML with VDX extensions for most of my VI work. I use fusionpro for most of the simple to complex work and am playing around with Darwin. I've used most composition programs, from XMPie, to Extreme, to I-Way Prime, to Printable. I personally believe there still is nothing better then hand coding VI, although that is getting tougher and tougher to say.

My workflow experience ranges from XiNet, Rampage, Brisque and most recently Prinergy which we currently use. I've also dabbled in web to print applications from various vendors but haven't settled on one to buy yet. There are so many great choices out there.

Last year I spoke at On-Demand in Philadelphia on Web to Print applications and in 2007 will be presenting in Boston at On-Demand in April. I do Variable Data presentations around the Minneapolis area for customers and do some technology consulting on the side.

John (rugby148) and I also run a podcast called Today in Print, which we will be doing our year end wrap-up show here soon. We try to stay up on all trends in the printing industry and try to pass that information on. We welcome guests to our show. Look for our new season of shows coming up here in the next couple of days.

I've been in the commecial printing industry for 15+ years. I started and stayed in IT. I started with a mid-size, privately owned printer, working with the sales force during the start of the Desktop Publishing revolution. I became part of the programming staff, and helped develop all in-house plant operation software. We didn't use any off-the-shelf software, so we wrote all scheduling, inventory, accounting, shipping, estimating and related software ourselves. I became Vice President of IT, and that was during the transition to digital printing and also the advent of the Web. I wrote the industry's first "complete" eCommerce application, with real-time PDF proofing. Today, we'd call this "web-to-print".

The company I worked for was acquired by Consolidated Graphics, and thus ensued what I call the "Dark Ages", the worst two years of my life. A visionary, IT-centric person/staff is bound to fare poorly at an organization that is innovation-averse with a "why try when you can just buy" philosophy.

I take it as a point of pride that all of the software I wrote or helped to write, is still in use today, both at CGX and previously.

Since CGX I've worked wholly in the data-driven printing market, as a trainer, consultant, and occasionally employee, working primarily with small, innovative, private companies in the transactional printing, or financial, markets. Very recently, I was hired by Objectif Lune to fill a variety of roles.

I run a forum (more focused on VDP and software, so not in competition with this forum!) as well, http://www.tgreer.com/printforum/ to assist adopters of VDP software with database and PostScript programming concepts. I'm also involved in the PrintWiki project at http://printwiki.org.

Howdy All
I have been in the trade for about 30 years, Form letter press to small prepres to prepress in prepress house's and the last 8 years commercial print shops working prepress.
3 years ago the company I work for got there first igen the 2nd for CGX working press and prepress and vdp. move up state working for another CGX company doing the same.
We use pdf work flow and XMpie.
You All Have A Graet Day
iGEN Jim

I own a small shop that has letterpress, small offsets and is making the transition towards digital. I started working for my father-in-law 13 years ago and bought the business this fall. On the color side we have a Canon CLC4000 (for now) A smaller ImageRunner C3200. On the monochrome we have an older Canon ImageRunner 5000 and just installed a Ricoh MP9000 two weeks ago.

We use the 3 letterpresses for a lot for scoreing, perforating, die cutting and numbering. Our offset side runs the everyday letterhead, envelopes, NCR stuff. I have concentrated our sales on the digital side the last 4 years, it's a little tougher sell when you are located in a city of 30,000 but were holding our own well.

Just got started VDP and with Fusion Pro this summer. I have no formal training in this industry, college for me was horticulture and botany I guess that's what happens when you marry into a family business! So needless to say I spend most of my free time as a sponge with the forums trying to soak up as much as I can.

Thanks for freely sharing your knowledge and comments with this forum!
Craigthesponge

Well I'm new here so bear with me!

I have been in the print industry since '79, and at my current employer for the past 15 yrs. We are a full service commercial printer with a fully equipped bindery, letterpress and mail departments.

I am also a web-applications developer specializing in e-commerce. I am also the developer of a commercial shopping cart system and also a "search-engine friendly" store-builder.

Besides developing customized customer order systems for our print buyers I also developed the CarbonlessUSA.com website which offers real-time pricing and on-line ordering of carbonless forms to print brokers and suppliers.

We installed our first iGen in Dec '06, and I have been acquiring a whole new skill-set. I am currently building our Web Services 5.0 to our customer base, dealing with xmPie and variable data, creating a PURL campaign and will start learning VIPP within the next few days.

After four months since the iGEN was installed, we are now running it at 85% of the work day, and see two full shifts within the next few months.

I hope to be able to learn from others and share what I know.

CA Lane,

Welcome. It will be great having you on the forums. It sounds like you have an exciting role. It also sounds like you are on the cutting edge. That is great, I look forwarding into getting to know you

Cheers,
John

Hi All

My name is Craig and live in the Boston area. I have worked in the imaging and print sector starting in 1985.

I have just recently gotten back into the small format digital print. The company I am working for now is a commercial printer that is just getting in to digital printing and mailing. They have a new Xerox5000 with the Creo Spire rip and dropping pdf files to hotfolders for impos. They also have a Xerox Nuvera which I do not know much about, it does have the Xerox DFE but i dont know what one yet.

Since 1999 I have worked in shops as prepress and print production working with Canon clc1000 with fiery, preping files for Xexox 2040, Igen3, DocuTechs, and as an operator for HP Indigo 3500.

I have worked some with Creo Darwin, Printmail, FusionPro Desktop, DirectSmile and Yours Truly for VDP.

Among other equipment used have been various Large format 60" Inkjet printers
UV and Solvent, and rips from Onyx, Wasatch. Color management software from Xrite, Praxisoft, GM, and Monico.

As I start back into small format printng and VDP I look forward to using the resources and knowlwege from this group.

Craig

I'm fairly new to the industry, having worked for a mid sized UK commercial printers for 3+ years, first job out of uni. We are mainly litho printers, with a full bindery, but have a small digi department, which I am the supervisor of, reporting to the manager of the litho presses.

In my department we run an HP Indigo 5000, which is a vast improvement on the previous arrangement (an r1000 and a 1050), as well as a Digimaster, and the digi finishing gear (buckle folder, lump folder, creaser, stitch / square back, minibinder, 3KT). I also do a fair amount of prepress work, some VDP, and all the admin.

Neil

I have been in Printing for 19 years at the University of Louisville In-plant Printing Services. I had worked primarily on our Offset side until we purchased our Igen in 2004 at that point, I was moved over to provide Prepress support for the IGen as well as be an operator of the digital press. My background has varied over the years from Conventional Prepress (Film Stripping) to Electronic Prepress, Customer Service, Estimating, Print buying, Graphic Design and Igen Key Operator.

Ok let's see....

Been in the "biz" since '76, when I was a Xrx 7700 and 9200 operator for Vydec Inc in Florham Park, NJ. We even had a Van Dyke roll-fed copier! Joined the big X in '79 and worked for XRC (now XBS) as a machine operator. Got exposed to the Xerox Star workstations and was hooked on the concept of digital printing forevermore. Fast forward to '91 where I rode the Docutech introduction wave, first as a trainer and then as a network analyst in NJ. Supported DT's, printing systems and various Docucolor boxes and front-ends. Did a sales stint with Impact Images, a color service bureau in Princeton (6135, Doc 40's, Canon CLC and color wide format), for a year. Two years at McGraw-Hill/Cunningham Graphics mostly VIPP programming and NP135 printer support. Five years at Oce' supporting Prisma installs and am now a Systems Engineer with Ricoh's Production Print Business Group, in the greater Philly area. Guess you might say there's toner in my blood. Been through it all; Interpress, Viewpoint, Postscript, PCL, LCDS, AFP/IPDS, print servers and front ends of all types and description. About to become familiar with Nexpress and looking forward to it.

Been in the biz since january. I work for a norwegian print on demand chain called CopyCat. The shop i'm based at is located at the Norwegian School of Management. We do print on demand services, scanning, large format printing including mounting and framing, V.D., copying, design work.
I specialize in design and prepress work while my college runs the business side.

Since graduating art school in may i have been doing all kinds of odd jobs; recruiting for a NGO, handing out flyers, worked as as salesman at the Scandinavian equivalent to Circuit City.

I decided to leave Sweden for Norway in october because Swedish employers rarely offer full-time employment or gratifying jobs to anyone under 30. The starting wages are about 60% higher in Norway due to outrageous demand.

Anyways i got my current job by email and a lot of luck.

Our main production unit is a Canon IP C7000VP with Fiery.

I've been in the print business since 1984 where I worked for a gravure print organization that was a confluence of a mid-west magazine publisher and a German printing company. From there I went to a larger printing organization based in Chicago; also, in this case, a gravure printer.
I found that being a production worker (Prep/Digital Prep) that rotating shifts were not helping my health and found a digital shop inside a commercial print house where I had a fixed shift. Going from a large printer to a small digital shop was an education. As in "night and day" different. I liked the quick turnaround of digital and being able to see your work on paper within minutes of completing a layout. The sharpness and color of the digital prints won me over. I've been working with it now for going on 8 years now. We know there is a difference in ink and paper presses and digital presses. Here we are reiminded of it almost daily with, "it doesn't match the presses". But, I stand by my answers that digital has it's niche and offset and gravure presses have their place. Together the two are a good combination. Quick and colorful images that can be delivered in one third the time of conventional printing and the ability to print ten million impressions with much greater ease than digital ever could.
Vive la difference.

I am new to the industry. I am from Vancouver, Canada! We are a full-service trade bindery with numerous services available.

My introduction to the industry started in high school when I was put into a Graphic Arts class. I ran ABDicks and made my own film and plates. And yes, we still used QuarkXpress and PageMaker! Then I went on to study at Ryerson University in Toronto Ontario, in Graphic Communications Management, the first and only degree-granting program catered to the Printing Industry. Throughout my four years at Ryerson, I have been involved with many organizations such as the OPIA, Craftsmen's Club, and in my last two years, the PIA/GATF's Technical Association for the Graphic Arts (TAGA) student division. It was through TAGA that our group attended the Conference held in San Francisco last year to present our technical paper and bring home the Helmut Kipphan Student Publication award.

Moving back to Vancouver (my hometown), I am starting to get involved with the BCPIA and Craftsmen's Club locally.

Thanks for listening!