Imposition software, replacement for Preps

Started by DPSprint, January 23, 2018, 12:41:34 PM

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Joe

Quote from: Ear on January 24, 2018, 06:00:20 PMI haven't actually launched Preps in years, so I can't remember all of the nuances of JDF creation but there were a handful of parameters that would produce odd errors. I remember if I modified marks on a template, then exported, the resulting JDF would not allow pages to auto center. But if I modified the template, quit Preps - restart, then open and export without modifying, the template would be okay.

I also remember a problem with Creep being intermittent, in the JDF. There were others that aren't coming to mind but most were just doing things in certain order. It was weird but I got a lot of work done that way, until I got integrated.

Were you using version 5 back then? Version 6 was a complete re-do. Nothing like the old Preps 5. It is now up to version 8. Every impo we make creates a JDF in the Prinergy job system folder and then processes whatever output we need like imposed PDF's or imposed one-bit tiffs for the CTP or our imposed virtual proofs and everything seems to work that way. Creep, bottling, etc... I can't speak of how it behaves in other workflows though.
Mac OS Sonoma 14.2.1 (c) | (retired)

The seven ages of man: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills and wills.

Slappy

Quote from: DPSprint on January 24, 2018, 02:48:01 PMMost of my files are supplied as pdfs so I probably need a pdf imposition rather than indesign plugin.

Slappy: I see what you mean about creating a larger size when adding lay marks, thats a bit annoying!
This is gonna take a while to work through.. sigh...
That was probably my biggest problem, so I made Actions in Pitstop (for all of our normal press sheet sizes) that rotated & cropped to the "true" sheet size, leaving the lay marks in place. Oh, I also had to make my own & store them in the App's resource folder. They're just PDFs, I simply renamed them to exactly match the original marks so the program would recognize them

I used it for less than a year, not sure I could have tolerated it too much longer.
A little diddie 'bout black 'n cyan...two reflective colors doin' the best they can.

Slappy

Quote from: DPSprint on January 24, 2018, 04:02:05 PMfunny enough, its fuji who have installed the new RIP this month, which is a vast improvement on the very old RIP... I did mention about XMF to the boss but I think it will be too expensive to get.
I know in our case, we threw in for Fuji's plates, chemistry and I think some other assorted supplies and was told that the saving on plate cost alone from our old vendor would pay for XMF in short order, so it was a no-brainer. Might be worth a discussion, if you're in a position to negotiate.
A little diddie 'bout black 'n cyan...two reflective colors doin' the best they can.

Diddler

Quote from: Joe on January 24, 2018, 04:19:16 PMAt the time we were trying XMF they were having trouble creating some of our complicated multi-sig impositions in the XMF imposition software (not saying XMF won't do it today but our trainers didn't know how to do it at the time). 
Sorry for the Hijack DPSprint, but, Joe would you be willing to share with me a "complicated multi-sig impo" I would like to have a crack at it.  I know I can get XMF to do some complex multi-sig impos. I would just like to have a crack at it if at all possible.
You can't polish a Turd, but you can roll it in glitter!

wonderings

I use Imposition Studio Pro and love it. Support is fantastic and very fast. Issues I have had or glitches I found brought about updates they released shortly after. Been very impressed with their support.

Joe

Quote from: Diddler on January 25, 2018, 01:48:29 AMSorry for the Hijack DPSprint, but, Joe would you be willing to share with me a "complicated multi-sig impo" I would like to have a crack at it.  I know I can get XMF to do some complex multi-sig impos. I would just like to have a crack at it if at all possible.

Sure. Here is saddle stitch double parallel multi-sig template where the pages with the blue outline on them are sig 1 and the pages outlined in red are sig 2. Sig 1 being pages 1-16 & 49-64 and sig 2 being 17-48. They deliver out of the press as 2 different sigs.
Mac OS Sonoma 14.2.1 (c) | (retired)

The seven ages of man: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills and wills.

Ear

Yes, Sierra impo handles that just fine. Didn't use to, but it does a great job now. I do native double parallel, as well as multi-web, including odd half and 3/4 web in the mix, when needed. Your press is bigger than mine, Joe, but I have many a template like your double parallel example. 

And yes, I stopped at Preps 6, but did most of my JDF out of 5. I think you are right that a lot of the odd errors stopped, for the brief time I used 6.
"... profile says he's a seven-foot tall ex-basketball pro, Hindu guru drag queen alien." ~Jet Black

DPSprint

#22
Quote from: Slappy on January 24, 2018, 09:14:37 PM
Quote from: DPSprint on January 24, 2018, 04:02:05 PMfunny enough, its fuji who have installed the new RIP this month, which is a vast improvement on the very old RIP... I did mention about XMF to the boss but I think it will be too expensive to get.
I know in our case, we threw in for Fuji's plates, chemistry and I think some other assorted supplies and was told that the saving on plate cost alone from our old vendor would pay for XMF in short order, so it was a no-brainer. Might be worth a discussion, if you're in a position to negotiate.
we have done the same, but the offset side is nowhere near as big as it was a few years ago so I dont think the savings were huge (even with both the 4 col and 2 col presses... we sold the a2 last year) so would be lucky if we made 12 plates a day now... probably more 70/30 - digital (indigo) /offset now
but for this place its perfect... we slot between the digital print places and the large offset places nicely... full the gap so to speak, we often do work for both.

Its a xitron navigator RIP, still uses the same software (Harlequin) that we have had for years, just updated. (needed to be done as since the  2 company merge we had to use both rips, slightly different versions to do plates and the CIPS ink files, neither could do both). And I see looking at the website that sierra is the workflow they run... probably too expensive again!

I did actually get a reply for the local kodak/preps supplier yesterday:

"The current release of Preps v8.1 will not run with this High Sierra.
Preps v8.2 is due for release end of March.

My recommendation from the issues described, is to wait for this release.
This will then allow you to upgrade both your Mac OS and Preps at the same time.
I have requested further info from Vancouver in regards to the Adobe PDF engine updates for Standalone versions.
Will let you know when I have this info."

so we wait on that score, gives me more time to evaluate others, unfortunately leaves me on Yosemite until then really. Not much point in updating sys software now though i guess I could go up to sierra maybe.
The only issue I have is that CC wont update to the very latest as I dont have the latest sys software... and i have had a couple of indesign files from designers that say they need an updated version, tis a tad annoying




DPSprint

Quote from: wonderings on January 25, 2018, 07:26:28 AMI use Imposition Studio Pro and love it. Support is fantastic and very fast. Issues I have had or glitches I found brought about updates they released shortly after. Been very impressed with their support.
Thanks, I may talk to you a bit about it.  :)
 
Do you do offset work at all? Have you seen that plate mark issue?

Joe

Quote from: DPSprint on January 25, 2018, 12:40:17 PM
Quote from: Slappy on January 24, 2018, 09:14:37 PM
Quote from: DPSprint on January 24, 2018, 04:02:05 PMfunny enough, its fuji who have installed the new RIP this month, which is a vast improvement on the very old RIP... I did mention about XMF to the boss but I think it will be too expensive to get.
I know in our case, we threw in for Fuji's plates, chemistry and I think some other assorted supplies and was told that the saving on plate cost alone from our old vendor would pay for XMF in short order, so it was a no-brainer. Might be worth a discussion, if you're in a position to negotiate.
we have done the same, but the offset side is nowhere near as big as it was a few years ago so I dont think the savings were huge (even with both the 4 col and 2 col presses... we sold the a2 last year) so would be lucky if we made 12 plates a day now... probably more 70/30 - digital (indigo) /offset now
but for this place its perfect... we slot between the digital print places and the large offset places nicely... full the gap so to speak, we often do work for both.

Its a xitron navigator RIP, still uses the same software (Harlequin) that we have had for years, just updated. (needed to be done as since the  2 company merge we had to use both rips, slightly different versions to do plates and the CIPS ink files, neither could do both). And I see looking at the website that sierra is the workflow they run... probably too expensive again!

I did actually get a reply for the local kodak/preps supplier yesterday:

"The current release of Preps v8.1 will not run with this High Sierra.
Preps v8.2 is due for release end of March.

My recommendation from the issues described, is to wait for this release.
This will then allow you to upgrade both your Mac OS and Preps at the same time.
I have requested further info from Vancouver in regards to the Adobe PDF engine updates for Standalone versions.
Will let you know when I have this info."

so we wait on that score, gives me more time to evaluate others, unfortunately leaves me on Yosemite until then really. Not much point in updating sys software now though i guess I could go up to sierra maybe.
The only issue I have is that CC wont update to the very latest as I dont have the latest sys software... and i have had a couple of indesign files from designers that say they need an updated version, tis a tad annoying

Preps 8.1 works fine in Sierra as does the latest Adobe CC. There will never be the Adobe PDF Print Engine in Preps. And even if they could you wouldn't like the price. I asked about getting it for our Fiery RIP on our color copier. $25,000 US Dollars. Needless to say we do not have it on our Fiery. :D
Mac OS Sonoma 14.2.1 (c) | (retired)

The seven ages of man: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills and wills.

Joe

#25
Quote from: Ear on January 25, 2018, 12:13:28 PMYes, Sierra impo handles that just fine. Didn't use to, but it does a great job now. I do native double parallel, as well as multi-web, including odd half and 3/4 web in the mix, when needed. Your press is bigger than mine, Joe, but I have many a template like your double parallel example.

And yes, I stopped at Preps 6, but did most of my JDF out of 5. I think you are right that a lot of the odd errors stopped, for the brief time I used 6.

Are you using folding patterns to do an impo like that. If so can you tell me which folding pattern you use and any other specifics because I've never been able to get the folding patterns in Preps to work for a multi-sig template.

And if I remember right someone from XMF came up with kind of a work around in our short time with XMF but the problem with their work around was that in a perfect bound job they couldn't get collation marks to place on both sigs and be numbered differently. For example we can run a perfect bound book using multi-sig templates and each sig has the collation mark box numbered correctly. And if we run a multi-sig we can also assign the same pages to each sig to run it 2 up and each collation mark box will number them the same number of sig. Preps is pretty smart the way it handles it. Also we can have a different job info variable mark for each sig identifying it as sig1, sig2, etc...those are the kinds of things that XMF couldn't do at the time.
Mac OS Sonoma 14.2.1 (c) | (retired)

The seven ages of man: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills and wills.

scottrsimons

There is also Metrix out there. The guys behind it were the original programmers of Preps back in the day. I haven't used it, but have looked at. And it looks pretty good. The shop where I work is a Kodak shop. Workshop and Preps.

Here's a link to Metrix's info: http://www.efi.com/products/productivity-software/imposition-layout/efi-metrix-planning-and-imposition/overview/
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!" - Homer J. Simpson

DPSprint


Ear

Joe, I'm not using the folding patterns. I like to control the pagination myself. I use auto page flow, once I get one form created but I set the pattern myself.
"... profile says he's a seven-foot tall ex-basketball pro, Hindu guru drag queen alien." ~Jet Black

scottrsimons

Quote from: DPSprint on January 25, 2018, 01:49:07 PMwhat sort of cost is Metrix?

Not 100% sure, but I think it is along the line of Preps. But seems to be built more around the idea of integrating with other systems, including MIS. From what I can remember, a strong JDF setup.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!" - Homer J. Simpson