Xmpie or Fusion Pro

Started by pspdfppdfxhd, September 19, 2018, 07:06:52 AM

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scottrsimons

If you are anywhere close or are already going to Print18 in Chicago, I know FusionPro will be there, since their headquarters are located in Illinois. It's a good chance to talk to the nerds. And I'm sure if you contact them before the show, they can arrange a hands on demo there.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!" - Homer J. Simpson

DigiCorn

Quote from: pspdfppdfxhd on September 19, 2018, 12:02:56 PMSo I guess, even though you're in Acrobat, the available fonts would match the ones you are using in Indesign?
It is kind of fussy about fonts, but you can always copy the font to the system folder, do the job, and remove it when done if in a pinch. I've had to do this for some IMBCs.
"There's been a lot of research recently on how hard it is to dislodge an impression once it's been implanted in someone's mind. (This is why political attack ads don't have to be true to be effective. The other side can point out their inaccuracies, but the voter's mind privileges the memory of the original accusation, which was juicier than any counterargument ever could be.)"
― Johnny Carson

"Selling my soul would be a lot easier if I could just find it."
– Nikki Sixx

"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut."
― Ernest Hemingway

pspdfppdfxhd

Quote from: scottrsimons on September 19, 2018, 12:41:44 PMIf you are anywhere close or are already going to Print18 in Chicago, I know FusionPro will be there, since their headquarters are located in Illinois. It's a good chance to talk to the nerds. And I'm sure if you contact them before the show, they can arrange a hands on demo there.

Well it's about a 7 hour drive from here so unless my boss springs for a flight, hotel room, meals and an extra day off I won't be going. Thanks anyways.

Plus, I'm not sure if I could cross the border to the US these days. I smoked pot about 30 years ago.



DigiCorn

Quote from: pspdfppdfxhd on September 19, 2018, 12:56:59 PM
Quote from: scottrsimons on September 19, 2018, 12:41:44 PMIf you are anywhere close or are already going to Print18 in Chicago, I know FusionPro will be there, since their headquarters are located in Illinois. It's a good chance to talk to the nerds. And I'm sure if you contact them before the show, they can arrange a hands on demo there.

Well it's about a 7 hour drive from here so unless my boss springs for a flight, hotel room, meals and an extra day off I won't be going. Thanks anyways.

Plus, I'm not sure if I could cross the border to the US these days. I smoked pot about 30 years ^minutes ago.
*fixed!
"There's been a lot of research recently on how hard it is to dislodge an impression once it's been implanted in someone's mind. (This is why political attack ads don't have to be true to be effective. The other side can point out their inaccuracies, but the voter's mind privileges the memory of the original accusation, which was juicier than any counterargument ever could be.)"
― Johnny Carson

"Selling my soul would be a lot easier if I could just find it."
– Nikki Sixx

"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut."
― Ernest Hemingway

scottrsimons

Quote from: pspdfppdfxhd on September 19, 2018, 12:56:59 PM
Quote from: scottrsimons on September 19, 2018, 12:41:44 PMIf you are anywhere close or are already going to Print18 in Chicago, I know FusionPro will be there, since their headquarters are located in Illinois. It's a good chance to talk to the nerds. And I'm sure if you contact them before the show, they can arrange a hands on demo there.

Well it's about a 7 hour drive from here so unless my boss springs for a flight, hotel room, meals and an extra day off I won't be going. Thanks anyways.

Plus, I'm not sure if I could cross the border to the US these days. I smoked potatoes about 30 years ago.

* now it's fixed. They won't know a thing.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!" - Homer J. Simpson

pspdfppdfxhd

Quote from: scottrsimons on September 20, 2018, 05:53:14 AM
Quote from: pspdfppdfxhd on September 19, 2018, 12:56:59 PM
Quote from: scottrsimons on September 19, 2018, 12:41:44 PMIf you are anywhere close or are already going to Print18 in Chicago, I know FusionPro will be there, since their headquarters are located in Illinois. It's a good chance to talk to the nerds. And I'm sure if you contact them before the show, they can arrange a hands on demo there.

Well it's about a 7 hour drive from here so unless my boss springs for a flight, hotel room, meals and an extra day off I won't be going. Thanks anyways.

Plus, I'm not sure if I could cross the border to the US these days. I smoked potatoes about 30 years ago.

* now it's fixed. They won't know a thing.

That might explain the drain bamage.


seratne

Another thing to consider between the InDesign plugins (XMPie, SmartStream, DesignMerge) is that while you're processing the job you can't use InDesign. With FusionPro all of the work is done in Acrobat, but there's a separate application that does the processing so you're machine isn't tied up. There are server versions of XMPie and SmartStream, but I'm pretty sure you need to add at least a zero to the price.

FusionPro does kind of suck when it tries to keep formatting though. Leading, font sizes, colors, line breaks, forced caps, etc. need to be double checked.

As far as scripting languages, I would say FusionPro and JS is much easier than QLingo. If you need a custom javascript to let's say change a dollar amount to words instead of numbers (like on a check), you can just google for it and it'll probably be on stackoverflow for you to copy and paste. To do that in QLingo would require a lot more expertise in programming. We frequently do jobs in excess of 100,000 records with multiple pages in FP.


pspdfppdfxhd

Does anyone know if fusion pro would support multilple data files? Even being able to use 2 at once would be useful.


scottrsimons

Quote from: pspdfppdfxhd on September 20, 2018, 12:51:33 PMDoes anyone know if fusion pro would support multilple data files? Even being able to use 2 at once would be useful.

I haven't done it, but have read about it, on the forum. I've included a link to the forum below.

Printable Forum
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!" - Homer J. Simpson

DigiCorn

Quote from: pspdfppdfxhd on September 20, 2018, 12:51:33 PMDoes anyone know if fusion pro would support multilple data files? Even being able to use 2 at once would be useful.
Obviously, I've had it recall multiple variable image files. I haven't used it for multiple data, though.
"There's been a lot of research recently on how hard it is to dislodge an impression once it's been implanted in someone's mind. (This is why political attack ads don't have to be true to be effective. The other side can point out their inaccuracies, but the voter's mind privileges the memory of the original accusation, which was juicier than any counterargument ever could be.)"
― Johnny Carson

"Selling my soul would be a lot easier if I could just find it."
– Nikki Sixx

"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut."
― Ernest Hemingway

seratne

Quote from: pspdfppdfxhd on September 20, 2018, 12:51:33 PMDoes anyone know if fusion pro would support multilple data files? Even being able to use 2 at once would be useful.

If you mean cross referencing data files, yes. You just create a rule to load the external data file "OnJobStart", then another rule to find the matching row or rows and return the value.

pspdfppdfxhd

Just uninstalled the FP demo, it was just way too buggy on my Mac. Couldn't get the rules to work right, it did not recognize the fonts i used in the .indd document to test.

I can only say that working through acrobat is not a good option on my Mac. I have Pitstop and Quite Imposing installed so that's just another layer of complexity....and acrobat has been buggy on this machine to say the least.

I watched the demo then gave it a whole 3 hours of playing around which produced about 10 more gray hairs. From the positive comments I read here I am not saying it's a bad product, if it worked properly, I would definately like to use it.

Back to the drawing board. I looked at the DesignMerge website and their pricing is very bizzare. Just give me one cost for something that works and not break everything down into modules!

I hope there's another option out there in under the 2 grand range cause that's about all we have to work with.

Slappy

If you're feeling wacky, try reading through the thread on the Affinity forums about people wanting Data Merge functions in their newest app. They don't have it, but people mention some other software I wasn't aware that does do data, and fairly well apparently.
A little diddie 'bout black 'n cyan...two reflective colors doin' the best they can.

DigiCorn

You'll have to go back and look at a post I had on FP a while back. There's a certain order to install, so they all play nice. It works well, provided you activate fonts correctly as well. And I think there's a backup font activation protocol built in to FP to "force" it if it's not seeing something correctly.
"There's been a lot of research recently on how hard it is to dislodge an impression once it's been implanted in someone's mind. (This is why political attack ads don't have to be true to be effective. The other side can point out their inaccuracies, but the voter's mind privileges the memory of the original accusation, which was juicier than any counterargument ever could be.)"
― Johnny Carson

"Selling my soul would be a lot easier if I could just find it."
– Nikki Sixx

"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut."
― Ernest Hemingway

pspdfppdfxhd

I am going for a webinar the demo for DesignMerge Pro to check that out.

Price is over 6,000 CND so that may be an issue.

They are in with Enfocus somehow, so that is a good sign I would think.

I would definately prefer to work only in InDesign, that would be a big plus.