Do any of you do variable data on the Xerox 700 with a Fiery and if so, what do you use?
Fusion Pro? Print Shop Mail, or what?
and, any info as to what works best, easiest, etc.
also, cheep.
thanks,
David
Through Command Workstation on Fiery. It's free.
Quote from: david on January 25, 2011, 01:43:02 PMDo any of you do variable data on the Xerox 700 with a Fiery and if so, what do you use?
Fusion Pro? Print Shop Mail, or what?
and, any info as to what works best, easiest, etc.
also, cheap.
We use a Xerox 2060, Canon 110 and Xerox 4110 with VDP. We use FusionPro. It doesn't get any che
aper than FusionPro and it's a mere fraction of the cost of XMPie. I personally use .pdf format for our antiquated Fiery / Ultra 60 (it runs Sun Microsystems
Solaris OS for Christ's sake)! But if you could run one of the other formats for VDP, it'd probably be better / smoother.
Quote from: gnubler on January 25, 2011, 01:52:18 PMThrough Command Workstation on Fiery. It's free.
On the Xerox we do use Command Workstation also.
We're getting FP in the very near future. Wish we had gotten it about 2 weeks ago as I'm dealing with a beast of a VDP job right now and will be doing it on the Xerox (on the alternate RIP, not Fiery).
Quote from: gnubler on January 25, 2011, 01:52:18 PMThrough Command Workstation on Fiery. It's free.
Here's the deal.
I do not have this in my building and really never saw it until just before lunch today. The people running it are complaining that it runs too slow. They are feeding this thing fat PDFs for the variable part and it's RIPing/printing way too slow.
Say I have a static piece and I need to do variable on some QR codes.
So, for me, can you tell me where/how do you do variable through the command workstation to marry the static with the variable? The PDF for the 700 says it need an app called Freeform. Is this true or what.
thanks in advance
Never used Freeform, but if Command Work Station is running slow it's BECAUSE VDP requires a fat pdf. Never done VDP in CWS (don't know if/how it can) - I think Gnub might have been talking about the RIP/Fiery processing the file just in general.
FP gives you the option of busting your VDP file into easily digestible chunks so you can send 10 100 part files instead of 1 1000 part file (for example). That will speed up processing time. Or you can bust it up manually.
I usually send my VDP job in sections for just this reason.
Yeah, I know about Fusion Pro. They don't have that at the place I'm dealing with. Probably will need to get it for them just for this reason.
I was really needing to know if it can be done with out FP, or if there is a built-in function to do this to some degree.
thanks!
After looking at CWS in greater detail, I see Freeform is incorporated into it and it has a master page option. No idea how this works; maybe Gnub can expand on the answer?
I was down there earlier today and didn't see it with my cursory look, but then again, I didn't know what I was looking for.
thanks for the info.
I know my Command Workstation is not up to date but here is the VDP section in it.
thanks Joe, that's the screen I saw when I was there.
So, the 700 cannot take a CSV or a tab delimited file? It has to be a fat PDF?
If the 700 is only printed to via Command Workstation, that's the way I'm seeing it but I'm certainly no expert on VDP. When I use Command Workstation it's usually because there is a problem of some kind and I get the short straw.
David, you should find out if whoever you're dealing with has a .vps license on their RIP, or .ppml, or .vdx. When we had a Xerox, it used a Creo RIP and we pushed .vps files to it. For the NexPress, we use .vdx. Both are much faster than any PDF format I've used.
Also, they need to look and see if their variable information crosses over any type of transparency.
Basically, what should happen is that the static portion of the page is written once, and copied many times, and the variable is written when it's called. However, if the variable info crosses over any type of transparency, the entire transparent area has to be re-written for each record. Slows down things considerably.
david-
im running command workstation 4/5 - however i dont use the VDP features, they are painully slow.. what i do for the majority of the VDP we run on it is:
Park your "fat PDF" static master on the firey server (under Freeform, use "create master")
Setup your VDP job (positioning) in InDesign without the master.. Merge your data, then output the firey, however this time in your options under Freeform, "use master" and the filename of your master.
this way it wont rip your static images for every page. should be 1000% faster.
The built-in VDP on the firey sucks ass. almost as bad as planetpress.
Quote from: delooch on January 25, 2011, 05:28:12 PMdavid-
im running command workstation 4/5 - however i dont use the VDP features, they are painully slow.. what i do for the majority of the VDP we run on it is:
Park your "fat PDF" static master on the firey server (under Freeform, use "create master")
Setup your VDP job (positioning) in InDesign without the master.. Merge your data, then output the firey, however this time in your options under Freeform, "use master" and the filename of your master.
this way it wont rip your static images for every page. should be 1000% faster.
The built-in VDP on the firey sucks ass. almost as bad as planetpress.
That's great advice, delooch. We're going to experiment with that later one and see how it works here!
Quote from: david on January 25, 2011, 04:08:46 PMSo, the 700 cannot take a CSV or a tab delimited file? It has to be a fat PDF?
That's right. What the others said. When I use Freeform on the Fiery I send 2 PDFs to the RIP - one dynamic (say a PDF with just numbers for imprinting tickets) and one static (the background of the ticket that doesn't change, that I select to use as a master).
I guess it depends on the project. Generally my static PDFs are not fat and it's only a one page PDF. If you're imprinting variable images things can get chubby so in the past I've split up large files into sections. The vast majority of my imprinting is numbers or text.
BTW, if anyone is attempting to do projects like this without the right tools I'll tell you right now it's not gonna work. We just got a new digital copier with Creo RIP (not natively outfitted with VDP functionality) and I attempted to run some tickets straight on. One batch was a 400 page PDF which I started ripping when I left for lunch and an hour later when I returned it was at 38% and still processing. I had to kill the job and switch it over to our older Xerox w/ VDP capability.
I've explained to my boss the urgency to get Fusion Pro set up on the Creo and he said "next month" so I'm doing the best I can for now. :death:
Thanks Delooch, extremely helpful info there.
and thanks also to Youston, I'll check into what they have (.vps license on their RIP, or .ppml, or .vdx).
They are wanting Fusion Pro also, but I think that for what they are currently doing, it wouldn't have sped it up on press. I think it has to do with the way their work-flow is setup.
thanks for all your help.
I'll let you know what I find out.
i'm on cws 5 and have used indy for the pretty basic and limited vdp jobs that i've had, so far. i had a little time a few weeks ago, though, and tried the freeform function in cws. i'm glad i did because i got a graphic intense vdp job right after. it took forever to rip sending the whole thing out of indy. sent the master over to cws, saved in freeform, then sent over the variable data and it worked like a charm. here's the site where i found the info. they actually have a few helpful tuts on there:
http://w3.efi.com/Fiery/Products/CWS5/Resources%20and%20Training/How-To/Guides (http://w3.efi.com/Fiery/Products/CWS5/Resources%20and%20Training/How-To/Guides)
Quote from: agent_orange on January 26, 2011, 01:10:37 PMthey actually have a few helpful tuts on there:
http://w3.efi.com/Fiery/Products/CWS5/Resources%20and%20Training/How-To/Guides (http://w3.efi.com/Fiery/Products/CWS5/Resources%20and%20Training/How-To/Guides)
great resource for firey things! thanks!
Just got out of a meeting with the xerox sales rep....
where's gnub when I need her?
and her gun
Here I am
(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_f3SZ5Tu916o/Sd9OG9lGu5I/AAAAAAAAM0c/eO0NXF7ZiUQ/s400/bikini+girl+with+ak.jpg)
What u need?
damn, where was I when you posted this?
xerox sales are some really smart peoples.... :sarcasm: 2
Quote from: david on February 17, 2011, 02:27:08 PMxerox sales are some really smart peoples.... :sarcasm: 2
No need to precede that statement with a trade name - they are all the same. Not so smart, just smooth talkers.
we had a tech support guy there, too.
another member of the brain trust.