Workflow/MIS/Web-to-Print

If you are working with direct mail marketing, e-mail marketing (with or without PURLs), mobile media marketing, transpromo or collateral fulfillment and you are trying to personalize the material to improve the response, then you know it is not easy to pull it all together.

In my first article, I began scratching the surface of the issues designers (and printers) face as they prepare files for print. To recap, I surveyed print providers and prepress technicians to find out how graphic designers can better prepare those files. Here are a few more tips from the survey.

It was difficult to avoid seeing or hearing the phrase “web to print” (W2P) at PRINT 09. The concept has been with us since the late 1990s, in the heady days of the dotcom bubble.

The 7 deadly signs of print production...some of the nightmarish things that designers do when preparing a project to be printed.

Which Web-to-print program is right for your operation? Some W2P offerings are built around procurement processes (from storefronts with shopping carts to complex estimating and order entry systems), while others hinge on collaborative processes (including on-line proofing, content management or digital asset management) or special capabilities (such as variable data design, customer service functions or marketing campaign management).

Combined workflow systems offer one-source drivers for platesetters, proofers and digital presses.

Ten months ago, the aging, largely analog Central Printing Division at the Oklahoma Department of Central Services (DCS), struggled to produce high-value color print and finishing work. “It was more than a challenge to be competitive and meet production deadlines,” recalls Mark Dame, director of Central Printing. Because it conducts its business as a self-funded government program, Central Printing often competes with some of Oklahoma City’s best commercial printers. For this reason, Central Printing’s team of 24 employees knew the time had come for

In-plants have an opportunity to win an all-expense paid trip to the new xpedx Technology Center in Cincinnati. The two-day trip is valued at about $2,500 per winner.

Last week, IPG and other graphic arts journalists visited the new xpedx print technology center, located just outside of Cincinnati. The 11,000-square-foot facility is reportedly the only U.S. center demonstrating equipment from a variety of manufacturers.

On Monday, xpedx is set to open an 11,000-square-foot Technology Center in its metro Cincinnati headquarters. It will provide U.S. print professionals with a single location to learn about and test new equipment and technologies from top manufacturers. The exhibition center will spotlight technology covering all aspects of offset and digital printing, including creative, pre-press/workflow, press and post-press/fulfillment. Printers can evaluate new products, technologies and production techniques from major print industry suppliers in a live print production environment.