Digital Printing to Personalized Development

The second generation of variable data software will make desktop publishing more personified. One of the hot new software that has emerged in the past few years has appeared under various names: "Variable Data," "Customization," and/or "Humanization." A year ago, technology needed to generate a Content-containing static layouts, changes between plates and plates, and strong front-end processing and expensive software packages complicate the technology and limit its features. (For a report on this initial technology, refer to Les Cowan's "Variable Data Software," which publishes digital printing - now part of the on-demand commercial printing (DP, April/May, 1997, p. 28).) Now, The most powerful and fairly inexpensive software has emerged: Xtensions from Qvark Xpress. Variable data software is still in its cradle stage, and there will be many difficulties in its further growth. But the three programs we've seen for this feature (Agfa's Personalizer-x, Vision's Edge's Focus Gold, and Angel's Darwin Desktop 2.0) show that the vendor's direction is correct. The concept of variable data printing is based on "mail merge" and is similar to word processing software. The variable data software that we will see in this chapter mainly uses the same method. Only here can we realize all the advantages of a page layout application: better glyph processing, professional graphics processing, and even variable data. The ability to form images. * Know Your Output Device There is no doubt that digital printing workflows are needed to make more efficient use of the ability to print variable data. Although these and other variable data applications are designed to support output to digital printers, they are also specifically designed for one or the other digital presses. Agfa's Personatizer-X was designed for output to its Chromapress press. This is not surprising. However, these programs generally allow your variable data file to be exported as a Postccript file, which is sent to any digital printer or copier for printing or copying. (Or it can be distilled into a PDF format) * Application selection as we reported last year, manufacturers with variable data software and compatible hardware found that their customers did not make full use of variable data systems ability. However, people believe that as the technology advances, more customers will use them creatively. So far, these softwares have mainly been sold through the direct selling market. Vendors have established customer manuals and flyers based on data stored in databases. The new digital printing capabilities allow the variable data to be combined with the page without trace, rather than making it apparently "ink" to the page. Any company that builds a database for his clients can make full use of variable data. Many of these applications can store interaction pages based on a consolidated database of one or more regions, depending on which one or more data domains you have combined. Is the customer a male? If yes, a page for men is generated, and if it is a woman, another page is generated. For example, Vision's Edge generated Focus Gold can generate 1600 different pages based on one template. The next step is not to evaluate these applications, nor how to do it. It is only to understand the basic method of the manufacturer to define variable data software, what the current production yield rate and error rate of the software are, and what kind of possibility is to the end customer. * Generate templates In the programs we see, Scitex's Darwin Desktop has the most sophisticated interface. In fact, Xtensions are two separate but looped programs. Darwin Pilot is a standalone application where you can set up working files, templates, and data. Darwin Co-Piolt runs in Quark and controls the fields that are inserted into the output of the Quark page. (We assume that the proper meaning of the product name term "Darwin" refers to the "modified evolutionary" nature of the printed sheets.) The first step in the process is to tell the Xtension which domain you will enter. * Prepare for imposition It is no surprise that the first step in production is to arrange layouts and assign variable data areas. The value of any software package is that it is possible to shuffle static and variable data in the same file frame and rearrange the surrounding fixed text as needed, just as these three items actually do. (Focus Gold has an interesting feature. When creating a variable-parameter file--a template has been generated before merging the data file--allows you to enter a minimum or maximum parameter that any particular field may contain. When you start to When your variable field is added to the layout, you can automatically enter all the "minimum" and "maximum" values. Look at how the two extremes affect font flow. This is a good attempt. Therefore, the best way to start is to generate fixed elements. First of all, we write this letter and then start to create a template for our variable data. In Agfa's Persoalizer-X, variable data fields are generated after the data file is input. The Data File Settings dialog (see figure) gives you several options and filters for entering data files. An important detection dialog for labeling is to use the first input record as a domain name. In some database programs, when a database is output as an unqualified text file, it stores the domain name in the first field. If such a data file has been created and has not yet been verified, the first variable data sales order may require "marked name", which may not be reasonable. In Personalizer-X, you also need to tell Xtension where you want to place the images contained in the layout on the layout. Setting up variable parameter files in Focus Gold is as simple and complex as you think. It can pre-pure the input of actual data files and use the aforementioned minimum and maximum domain inputs. When you distinguish certain images on the next page, Focus Gold provides many options for the domain; that is, all fields can be set. , but tell the type of imposition for each field that Focus Gold will enter (regardless of whether it is bills, flyers, advertisements, etc.). The disadvantage of Focus Gold is that the interface is not intuitive, and understanding the full meaning of it requires a lot of artificial research tips (of course, it can only be provided in PDF file format). Darwin is more sophisticated in this regard. It allows you to create contour models for each job. These contour models can then be merged with data files, layouts, and databases (such as images). With Darwin we do not need to consult the manual at all. Input of data files is very easy (only one tab or comma is required. Unlimited text files - simple output settings like Fikmaker Pro applications). Essentially, we're generating data-linked files, which brings us to a result... * Creating data files The key to getting good results with variable data Xtenwion is to set up the data files correctly -- or at the very least, the data files need to be neat. If you have used a database program like Fikmaker before, you know the difference between the domain and the record. A domain is essentially a specific bit of data, such as "name," "street address," "style," and so on. Records are a complete set of domain values ​​for a single customer. According to the variable data software, there is one printing unit for each record in the database. In each record, the variable data itself is equivalent to the domain. All software packages require that the data file be direct AscII text (some software, such as Darwin Desktop, can accept DBF files). This is a flaw in these programs. Ideally, any database file can be entered. However, now we have to coexist with these restrictions. Generally, a database program can output a database as an unqualified text file. A typical name is currently known as a "tabulation unqualified" file, that is, tabulation command symbols separate domains from domains. Similarly, a "carriage return" command can separate records, which allows the variable data program to know what is the domain and what is the record. * Injecting variable data Once you have a non-qualified text file, you need to merge it with the variable data Xtension. If you first create a layout, you can generate templates by adding variable data fields. Typically, this is a drag-and-drop operation; the created variable data fields appear in a menu or window and can be dragged to a location on the page, or dropped into their own text box, or a static text The middle of the box. When the data file is incorporated into a layout or template, it is probably a bit discouraging to see that the file is still only one page - instead of having multiple pages as recorded in the data file. Don't worry, slightly happy. Each application has a data browser that allows you to curl every "page" (actually, it is a deformation of a single page). Each "page" (Oh, let's call it a simple form page, okay) will display variable data for each record. When you work with it for the first time, you think it's pretty cool. Logically, there should be a "page" with the same number of records in the data file. If there is incoherence, the first thing that may come to mind may be to scroll through every "page" to make sure that nothing unusual has happened. Regardless of the purpose, you may want to scroll through each "page" and just double check the correctness of the information flow. Of course, if there are tens of thousands of records in the data file - then, in the variable Quark file There are thousands of "pages" -- this can be a daunting task. * Variable picture. The cool aspect of these applications is the ability to add different images to each "page" of the variable layout. Different applications have different ways of implementing this function. The Agfa Personalizer-X method is simpler. It includes a field in the data file for the file name of the image in question. The position of the image can be specified in the parameters (such as a specific folder in a particular disk). When creating a variable parameter file, it is necessary to indicate that the field containing the image file name is a picture. In the layout, the picture is placed on the page according to the size and can be annotated with a variable picture frame. After the data files are merged, the image that represents each record will appear on each page. On this issue, the defect of Agfa software is that you must arrange the use of images in advance. On the other hand, Agfa's other drawback with variable images is that each image should have the same size and orientation, and all of the image frames Changes must be made fully; for example, rotations can only be performed when images are used for special recordings. By using the same markup, each picture must have the same size, because the size of the picture frame cannot be changed, so each picture cannot be fit locally to the frame. Darwin's method is to use what Scitex calls "scale" or to invoke images with simple commands. In the example, a set of rulers is created and an image is placed in the picture box according to the contents of the field "Pet". For example, if the field "Pet" contains the word "Snowl"", the file name "Snowl" image will be called. This is a difficult job, but it seems to us to be effortless. Of course, it also depends on the The complexity of the image change, if there are only two images - such as rifles and teddy bears - it is only necessary to use a single field to trigger any image. That is, if the "Gender" field is "male," Trigger Teddy bear image. So on and so forth. The cool part of Darwin's approach is that when you add a ruler to a picture frame by holding down the option key, each picture is automatically scaled to match the picture frame. This works fine. In spite of this, no one has done any partial treatment. * Output