Anyone messing around with Artpro+ ?
Looks promising. Another revision or two and it looks like we can finally dump Neo.
No - still stuck in the dark age with Nexus 10.1.3 here. Have you upgraded to AE12 now?
We are all waiting for an efficient PDF editor that can manage with packaging specific treatment (trapping, step&repeat, white underprint,...) and ArtPro + could be the solution, but... for now we are far from a production software. :-\
As an ArtPro customer I can test ArtPro+ since the first public release but actually Artpro+ is too limited. :old:
I've heard from an Esko insider that the first "production ready" version will be for the Label market and the release date is third or fourth quarter of 2017. Next , the folding carton version will come one year later...
In the same time, the original ArtPro team from Artworks systems , leave Esko one by one, and integrated the Hybrid Software Packz team.
Packz is a totally new PDF editor, build from zero, with a proprietary PDF library.
I've tested it for few month in an early version and it was very promising. Packs is ready for production and Fuji and Kodak integrate it in their workflows for packaging printers.
In my opinion, the only really good thing in ArtPro+ is the interface. A smart well appear under the pointer of the mouse when you click and you can access to all the settings and informations from the object you've clicked. It's a very good idea.
So if you are thinking about buying an update for your old workflow, look at Hybrid software solutions, you can probably find efficient solutions for your needs.
I played around with ArtPro+ 16.1 last week, and it looked pretty powerful. It is due to be released in late June.
In order to select which tool to use, right click on the screen and a wheel appears with the tools, which are grouped together. Select a tool twice to move to the next one.
The palettes appearing on screen change depending on which tool is active, so no more needing a second monitor to put all the palettes on, or hunting for the one you need, hidden behind one you don't.
It does trapping, including "trap similar," and if you upgrade from essentials to advanced, you also get a "trap everything" button as well as step and repeat.
If you open a normalized pdf, it saves out a normalized pdf. If you open an Adobe pdf, it saves out an Adobe pdf.
If you wish, you can rename individual elements, or groups of elements, so that you can later track where changes were made, or what is going on with the file.
It supports creation and execution of ArtPro Actions, so you can use those in Automation Engine instead of PitStop ones if you tire of exporting to Adobe pdfs.
In short, it looked like a big improvement over Neo to me.
Only a bit over a month to wait now.
Good info Captain_Type, Neo has been invaluable to us for the past several years, don't really want to think about not having that in our arsenal, with the work we do. We use it every single day, without exception.
I have not been able to test out the prerelease of ArtPro+ as of yet, our ArtPro is stuck on 10.1 due to the OS being too old, I have seen a few quick walk-thrus from Esko, but it is always good to hear from someone who has actually played with it.
If you don't mind, when you do get it and work with it in a production environment for a while, could you post your thoughts/experiences with it????
Quote from: EmptyWords on May 16, 2017, 07:43:02 AMGood info Captain_Type, Neo has been invaluable to us for the past several years, don't really want to think about not having that in our arsenal, with the work we do. We use it every single day, without exception.
I have not been able to test out the prerelease of ArtPro+ as of yet, our ArtPro is stuck on 10.1 due to the OS being too old, I have seen a few quick walk-thrus from Esko, but it is always good to hear from someone who has actually played with it.
If you don't mind, when you do get it and work with it in a production environment for a while, could you post your thoughts/experiences with it????
We are being promised the latest version of Artpro+ at the end of the month. I saw a demo of a beta a while back and it looks like we may be finally able to cut Neo loose. I know you said it's been invaluable to you but after running Artpro for so many years Neo is just clunky and lacking so many tools. I will chime in as well once we run it around the block a few times.
Thanks G_Town, we use Neo only in our general production department, since we don't have ArtPro, but our packaging division does have and uses ArtPro everyday, I would love for them to get us ArtPro for us to use, but you know how that goes w/ the bean counters.
Neo is our de-facto pdf turd polisher, the junk we get from some clients, all standard offset and digital, no packaging and the extensive edits they always want us to do to their pdfs, would be a nightmare if we didn't have Neo and had to do in something like pitstop/acrobat.
Are you using Neo as a replacement for ArtPro??? If so I can see why you dislike it, that's like trying to use a moped when you actually need a box truck to get your job delivered.
Hopefully what they have been touting to us about it being the "unified editor" turns out to be true and we can replace all our ArtPro and Neo seats with just ArtPro+....... I HOPE!!!
Any info would always be greatly appreciated.
Hey Guys, I work for Hybrid Software. I used to be with Artwork Systems and then Esko. If anybody is looking for a mature PDF editor to replace Neo or Artpro then Packz is what you are looking for. As was previously mentioned, Hybrid is pretty much all former Artwork Systems employees that have jumped ship. If anybody is interested in seeing a demo of Packz drop me a line and I will set it up for you.
Welcome!
It's always good to have the software developers pop in. It's a welcome change from Adobe who flips us off at every opportunity.