You mean like redefining page geometry in Acrobat? That can be done in pdf fixups.

[edit] Didn't look at the topic (InDesign). I *think* I know how to do it for pdf only.

The coolest thing about Signa that I remember (I only used it a few months before we switched to Rampage) was that on templates you could layer them for multi-burns... so if you needed a varnish, or there was something missing, you could "double burn" a new layer.

That's good. It used to drive me nuts that it used to use fat pdfs. You could RIP a plate and get font substitutions, or trapping errors and there were numerous transparency issues. 

ouch!

Why the switch? I'm sure Signa has improved over the years. IIRC, I haven't used it since around v7 or v8, so I'm not going to be of any help.

Does it still require a fat pdf or will it worked with RIP'd data now? Can it still impose in layers?

Quote from: Slappy on February 11, 2025, 12:06:08 PMJust been browsing the Forums, I find their online help to a little "hostile" let's say. I'm mostly messing around, this job isn't so large or complicated it's a necessity, just thought it'd be relatively easy to do & save some handwork in bindery.

After perusing the post linked to in my response, I was reminded of Dan Korn, and yes, he was a fucking dick on the forums. That's why Boxee failed and Roku became the streaming box of choice; because Boxee forum users were dicks.

I'm surprised you're having trouble with FusionPro support. Did you place a call, or are you strictlt using the online forum?

When I used to do the Polar Express tickets for the Railroad Museum, I got assistance from phone support. IIRC, there were 5 or 6 train cars (each with a different background image), 3 or 4 different times of day (each in a different text color), 3 or 4 days per week (each with a different border color) for the event over 5 or 6 weeks. Each one had a unique, consecutive number, so there were something like 27,000+ tickets, and no two were alike, and they were printed using cut and stack.

I believe I had a different data file for each train car, but a single PDF. The data was composed all on a single tab for each car. Again, IIRC, I had to link a data file to the PDF, then export. Then link the next file, and export. I had to do this multiple times, and then on the larger result, split the PDF so that the digital press could process all the files.

I checked our forum, but I never posted the script. sorry.

I believe the expand objects tools only works for combining multiple objects or turning lines into shapes. I am not sure what it would do to a graduated screen creating a shadow effect.

FP is good for, say, up to 50,000... maybe 100,000 records. XMPie is good for stuff bigger than that. If you have a local XMPie server, than that's good... but the price tag is probably about 10x higher than FP.

I've worked with FusionPro and I've worked with XMPie and believe you me, FP is so much easier to deal with it's not even funny. Yeah, you do have to script a bit to do some special stuff, and it's not as powerful as XMPie, but if you're working with a small amount of records you can run it all locally instead of uploading to here and downloading from there. Also, you can preview while you're working instead of having to jump through a bunch of hoops first.

Quote from: born2print on January 28, 2025, 12:54:19 PMIsn't that a Chuck Berry song?

That's My Dingaling (not My Dingbat)

That's the point when I go," fuck this shit. I'm outta here," and then I take a handful of phenobarbital prescribed for my dog's epilepsy.

In printing, I am just waiting for the day when someone sends me a book, typed entirely in wingdings, with a note that says, "I goofed up and didn't have time to change the font. Can you just decipher it for me?" And it's a 400 page pdf with placed .pngs of all the text.

Quote from: scottrsimons on January 24, 2025, 11:52:28 AMYou nailed the way it works. I'm bad at putting it to words. So thanks for that.

I haven't touched FusionPro in over 10 years, but I've tried to stay current on its abilities. What I was trying to figure out is if there's a way you could import a list into to InDesign and then create a script or automation that takes the text and outlines it into a compound path and then insert the image into the path... or perhaps create the image on the parent page and mask it with the variable path.

I just imported a .csv into InDesign, with the text formatted the size I wanted. I outlined it and inserted a photo into the path and it worked. I'm fairly certain the path can be automated using Data Merge to insert an image. But I need someone more skilled at scripting and Data Merge than I am to figure out how to automate the process.

It might be that you have to create a first merge for the text in InDesign and outline it into a compound path. Then insert the image with FP in Acrobat? My head hurts...

Yes... kind of. I know in Expressions you can "build your own font alphabet," so using that method, you could create multiple images for each letter and Fusion Pro could be told to randomly decide which version of the letter to place. Basically if you created 6 different "A"s, callback one might be A v3 and callback two might be A v6, callback three A v2 and so on. I suppose by random chance you could get two of the same image/font next to each other. But I don't think this method would work for what you're looking for because you want a continuous image throughout the name and not random pieces.

I've run the Xante Impressia before at my old job. Not too impressed. Pretty sure we're just going to get another IntoPrint because the cost os right, our guys know how to run it, we have the peripherals and the front end and it's going to be a huge step up from the old IntoPrint.