Using text editor to change color bar on many templates

[DCurry]

Has anyone ever used a text editor to open up Preps templates and modify the marks?

Currently using Preps 8 and discovered recently that we've been using the wrong color bar for the past year and a half, so now we need to change it on all our templates. Because of the overall suckitude of any version after 5, modifying templates with lots of sigs within is now a major PITA so I'm looking to streamline it somewhat.

I tried it out on a job recently and it seems to have worked well, but just wondering if there is a caveat somewhere I'm not seeing? (Joe, I know you've done this before!)

[Joe]

Yeah I use either the deprecated TextWrangler or the free version of BBEdit. You can do a search and replace on all files in a folder. The secret is to place about 5 copies of a few templates and test it to make sure before you do it on your whole inventory of templates. Unless of course you like living on the edge. No secret caveat that I know of. Just make sure what you are searching for is correct and replace with something is correct.

[scottrsimons]

I vaguely remember doing the same sorta thing using BBEdit to a whole folder of templates. Search and Replace within the folder, per Kodak instructions. But I wish I could remember exactly how. If I'm pressed, I could probably find it.

[Mikie]

Could you guys elaborate on this a little more? Like how it works etc. I too recently found out we have the wrong color bars and would love an easy way to fix the templates. 

[Joe]

Using BBEdit under the search menu click "Multi-file Search..."

[attach width=400]19401[/attach]

Fill in your search and replace text in the boxes with the red arrow.

Then click the "Other" button and navigate to and select the folder where your template files are at.

[attach width=400]19403[/attach]

Then click "Replace All".

Just make sure you are using a copy of your templates so if something goes wrong you still have the originals.

[DCurry]

Mikie - once you force your template open in a text editor, you'll see a bunch of lines of code that basically just describe everything in the template. You have to do as Joe says and find what you want to replace. In my case, the code for my old color bar looks like this:

%SSiSmartMarkStart: 3 9 -1
name: |XL75_ColorBar_6Si_2019|
text: |F074_6S___740x10v12.0f.eps|
dupflags: 291
sigstart: 1
sigmod: 1
colortype: 0
color1: 100
color2: 100
color3: 100
color4: 100
rotation: 0
smartoffsetx: 36.00000
smartoffsety: -13.50000
refentity: 2
refanchor: 1
markanchor: 1
section: 0
width: 0.00000
height: 28.34700
origingroup: ||
calibratedupmark: true
smartoffsetb: -36.00000 14.84700
refentityb: 2
refanchorb: 3
%SSiSmartMarkEnd:

So, I replace all those lines with code describing my new color bar. To get that code, you can either open your desired SmartMark in the text editor and just copy all of it, or what I did was place the correct bar on a template, then open that new template and find the good code and copy it.

It's important to include first and last lines to denote the start and end of that smart mark. Otherwise it won't work. Also note that if your template has multiple signatures within, you'll likely have to find/replace the mark multiple times (once for each form.)

My plan is to do several at a time, and then open each one and verify that I didn't screw anything up before moving on to the next batch.

Joe - thanks for confirming that this is not a crazy idea!

[Joe]

Beats the hell out opening hundreds or even thousands of templates one at a time! Pretty sure ours are in the thousands by now.

[Mikie]

Got it. My issue here is we write out pjtf and .ps files for prinergy and thats what we import into each job with place holders. This is good info to know tho, so thanks guys

[Mikie]

Oh and...check out number of items

[Joe]

I don't think we have that many. I'll have to check.

[Joe]

Got it. My issue here is we write out pjtf and .ps files for prinergy and thats what we import into each job with place holders. This is good info to know tho, so thanks guys

I think .ps and .pjtf files are just text files aren't they. So you could do it with those too I think.

[DCurry]

Mikie - I'm not trying to re-invent your workflow or anything, but I'm curious why you wouldn't just use Prinergy's "Create New Imposition" which opens up a dialog box based on Preps where you can pick your template? Saves you from having to touch Preps at all unless you need to modify a template or make a new one.

[Mikie]

Good question, and my answer is based on how things worked when i got here. I am currently looking for a way to impose jobs right before plating but haven't had any luck out of preps. We are plating over 100 jobs a day easily so it's a bit of a mess. Any chance you could walk me through how your method works? It sounds interesting to me.

90% of our jobs are automated. Data is entered into a web app, and an xml file is exported. I run indesign scripts to build the art, pass the Indd and pdf and xml off to prinergy which creates a new job based on a prejob(which contains the imposition files). We do flat work here so they are basic impositions, but we have a lot of varying sizes and possible presses we can send to.

[Mikie]

I don't think we have that many. I'll have to check.

hmmm, indeed they are and I just found the color bar info in the .ps file.

man i love you guys lol

[Joe]

Oh and...check out number of items

I guess we are wimps here. Only 5,634. And some of those are just folders