Large Format Transit Panels

[pwd]

I'm a Systems Manager for Large Format and I'd love to find decent software/plug-in for large format transit (buses/trams etc). Where Pre-Press can just accept their files and drop into InDesign and using some type of plugin create all the panels on a tram for instance (including bleeds and overlaps).

Anyone have any recommendations?

[JasonSpr]

One way to do this without external software would be to create a template for the specific bus layout, using clipping paths mask non-printing areas by layer. Then one would simply create an customized Action to consecutively print to PDF the different layers, leaving you with a folder full of PDFs, each PDF containing the image with bleed and overlaps for that section.

Your prepress department would open the inDeisgn document template, paste in the image to be printed, and then run the Action.

Cheers,
JG

[pwd]

Interesting.. I will evaluate that way. Cheers!

[Gregg]

I used to work at a company that printed/installed most of the bus/subway wraps in Boston. We had templates that we created, similar to what JasonSpr was mentioning. We worked at a smaller scale and ripped a .ps file. The .ps file was then brought into PosterWorks, which was used to enlarge and set the overlaps. The system worked quite smoothly.

I actually miss working on vehicle wraps. It was quite fun.

Good luck.