Tell us about how you develop your variable print jobs.

I do most of my development in VIPP using VIPP IDE or notepad.

From time to time I have the opportunity to use a tool like design merge to assist in forming some of my code. I have used Printshop Mail for outputing optimized postscript. And unfortunately, I must admit I have even done some variable print from MS Word:(

I am so ashamed!

I didn't see Lytrod Software's Proform Designer in your list. I will look forward to it being added to this poll.

Lytrod is now a choice on the poll.

Sweeet

I've used printshop mail in the past for variable images and text in brochures, menus, mailouts and various other things. It was quite intuitive and time inexpensive to take advantage of.

I have some rather strong feelings about what I currently use and have decided to censor my post of it's fairly strong and in depth criticism, however warranted it may be.

First, Fujixerox, don't feel like you need to censor yourself, take a deep breath and wirte your opinions down. That is the point of this site, it is an independent site for opinions and points of view for all those involved in digital print. If you have negative opinions of something, say it, and what we hope is that the vendors will also come here to fix the issues people have with their products / services.

Anyway, let loose. Also, I have added FusionPro to the list of VI emmitters in the poll.

Hi, just found these forums, and they're great.

I work at a shop in Vancouver Canada that currently has a DC2045 w/Creo Spire and a iGen3 w/DocuSP. We do variable using Printshop Mail with the Optimized Postscript workflow, but I'm trying to get into VIPP or PPML.

Also used to do some variable data with a Quark plug-in called X-Data, which worked OK for simple personalization on B/W Docutechs and 9110's.

Glad to see we have some new variable data users.

fujixerox, I just want to re-iterate what patrick said, share anything! We really just want to get good, clear and legitimate opinions, concerns and problems out in the open. You may find that this could help in some improvements being made or someone else struggling with the same things you are. Perhaps they have already developed an alternative process.

silversurfer, wish you the best of luck learning both vipp and ppml. You probably already noticed that forums exist for each of them. Our hope is through those forums we can help others learn and develop in those languages. As a community of users form, it will become a wealth of knowledge for any developer or learner. Don't hesitate to post questions or tips about things that helped you learn.

I said 'or'. PPML OR VIPP. I don't have THAT much time on my hands...

No need to be ashamed, rugby148. We have been doing ALL of our variable print with MS Word. Of course, this was all on preprinted shells. Now that we are moving into digital, I'm not sure how we will do it. Most of our work is variable text and not variable graphics, but we are slowly moving into variable graphics. If the new frontends could do what our Xerox 4635 frontend can do, there would be no problem. I have a call in to our Xerox contact to find out if the DocuSP will do what we want it to do.

Typically, we know what is static and what is variable in our jobs. We send the static portions to our printer and store them in pre-RIP'd format and then put a command at the top of our variable merge document to pull the forms based on a field in our database (we use DBase IV). We use a postscript driver and have never had any print speed issues.

Kevin

You did not allow for mulitple answers... We use to use printshop mail (had some weak points) then purchased Fusion pro (Great application, blows printshop away!) We find that we use a combination right now. Fusion Pro for about 70%, 10% Printshop Mail and 20% custom programming.. We print to VIpp out of Fusion Pro and to postscript form Printshop Mail..

We have an Igen3 a konica and a large format for color and 7 BW machines.


Dale

This is an opportunity for me to mention Web4Print - this is a product my company offers -- a template-based system for online customization and ordering of print products. We tend to refer to Web4Print as a VDP solution, though it is sort of a different animal in that it is more about generating individual customized print-ready files rather than crunching data for direct-mail marketing etc.

-Andrew

So more of a versioning tool?

What is the typical number of version variatiosn the site supports?

Any other XMPie users out there?
I've been using XMPie for a couple (maybe three) years to do both variable print and web sites.
Although it was tough in the begining, now that I get it, it great!!
I've never used any other variable data program (besides Word).
Can anyone comment on how other VDP programs compare with XMPie?

I've used Printshop Mail, MS Word , MS Publisher, Creo Darwin, FileMakerPro, Looked at XmPie, InDesign DataMerge, Currently using Yours Truely with DirectSmile or FusionPro Desktop to HP Indigo 3050

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Craig

How do you like DirectSmile? I'm looking at DirectType and it sounds like they are very similar, minus the whole lawsuit thing...

Do you find yourself leaning more to YT or FusionPro for VI output to your Indigo?

Thanks

How do you like DirectSmile? I'm looking at DirectType and it sounds like they are very similar, minus the whole lawsuit thing...

I've just gotten into using DirectSmile and find that it is not to hard to grasp the basic workflow and set up. For large lists it does take awhile to process as it creates a jpeg file for each variable image and then references that in the jlt output stream. The creation of your own sets is something I'm planning to look into. Another thing to consider is can your sales market it.

Do you find yourself leaning more to YT or FusionPro for VI output to your Indigo?


A lot depends on how the job is received and the amount of variable in the design, One issue I have had is with supplied PDF files with Fusion Pro. The way that FusionPro uses PDF boxes i.e. media, trim, bleed, and crop has caused much frustration trying to get imposed correctly with correct bleeds and editing pdf boxes with Pitstop has been unsuccessful so far.

Variable coding Newbie


Some posts have mentioned writing their own code, a few of our jobs done are just simple addressing and seems as if they could be a good stepping stone in learning this. Any suggestions on how to go about this would be helpful. How is the imposition and cut stack order handled? I'm sure there are many other things that have to be worked into setup. Final output would be on Indigo Press 3050

Thank you
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Craig

Well, typically each variation would be generated by an enduser and then automatically sent for production - simplest example being business stationery where a user might select a branch location and then enter their individual name/contact info. We haven't used the system to generate a large batch of versions, though this would be fairly easy to set up and there should be no limit on number of versions in that case.

-Andrew

Hello,

My first post here. As a long-time PostScript developer, I still hand-code all VDP jobs, using a PostScript library I've developed over time. I've used a variety of VDP tools, however.

Welcome to the site!