DesignMerge and XMPie

[judyj]

Hi,

My bosses have asked me and a co-worker to review the software packages DesignMerge and XMPie and decide which one to purchase. We will be printing primarily to a Creo Spire RIP in front of a DocuColor 6060 but will also be doing some black and white printing also -- though I don't know to what system as we are in the process of replacing a Docutech 135 that is aging out (the only thing we could send to it is postscript which might also be the case with a replacement). We will be looking at the InDesign version of both packages.

What I am seeing is that both packages are very similar... but the DesignMerge package is MUCH cheaper that uDirect Personal Effect or Professional (uDirect standard is not an option here). I am also concerned about convenience, availability and intelligence of tech support -- which is probably more important than price.

I would love to hear from some USERS of these software packages -- what they love and hate, what sorts of projects they are doing, any recommendations. I would really prefer NOT to have this thread answered by sales people or vendors -- just folks "in the trenches" like me.

Any comments will help. Thanks for your time.

Judy Jordan

[Craig]

HI Judy, I don't use either of them but I do use Fusion Pro Desktop, {color:#999999}www.printable.com{color} and it works very well. I guess the new version even supports drop shadows and text on curves (gotta upgrade). I figured to most I'd have to loose was $500.00 if I didn't like it, but I'd do it again.

We are printing to a Fiery EX8000AP RIP in front of a DocuColor 8000AP, I output everything as PPML without a hitch, but you have the option of VIPP, PDF, PostScript, VDX, JLYT, Single and Multi file VPS plus a few more. The plug in for InDesign works well, you set up your text/graphic placeholders in InDesign and export to Acrobat where you add all the VDP elements. It has an Imposition tool that is quite slick too.

Good Luck

[MHoffer]

have been using designmerge for a couple years and think that it is a great product for our needs. we looked at all the options and found that the designmerge software was easy to learn and the support is awesome. we run postcards, letters, promotional materials the list goes on and on. we run thousands of pieces per week with no headaches.

We evaluated all of the other big name products and found that the designmerge was the software that fits our needs and for the price it was a no brainer for us (it paid for itself within the first month we purchased). they offer designmerge for quark and indesign for mac or windows, so we felt that left our options open as we scaled the vdp business up. we are running efi rip and xerox equipment. i hope this helps with your decision.

michael h.

[Tequillajane1]

We reviewed XMPie a while ago, and WOW is that awesome. But so was the price...

We already had Designmerge, and management chose to upgrade to the next version rather than move to XMPie.



Well, fast forward 2 versions of Quark and InDesign, and WAY more headaches !

We are setting up a review of Fusion Pro for next week.



Design merge is not all that it says that it is, it has many bugs with the Postscripting.

We do not use the PPML yet, and that means that we make a PDF of each job, with several thousand pages, it takes a very long time. Does not play well with working in other applications while it's merging. Tech support is available through phone and email though and they have been helpful, but only after you FTP them your files and they test it on their system.

We don't usually have that kind of time to wait around though..



We'll see what Fusion has to say, but I really wish they would have gone to XMPie way back when....

Fusion does look really slick though.



I did a post on a similar setup back when this was Prepress Forums, you could search the archives there too

But I had a salesshark answer my posts too.

[Gbane]

TequilaJane,

I just wanted to jump in here to be sure that DesignMerge is adequately represented. Full disclosure to the forum - I work for Meadows Publishing Solutions, the developer of DesignMerge Pro.

Here are a few important points to consider:

1. First, you may want to consider checking out the InDesign CS2-CS3 versions of DesignMerge. These versions utilize our new printing architecture and offer dramatic performance improvements for PPML. We will be offering several new output formats in the coming months, and all the changes are being migrated back to the QuarkXPress version as well.

2. Creating PDF's of every single page for variable, as you described, is probably the slowest way to run your VDP jobs. Of course, if you need individual PDF files, then there is no other way to do it. On the other hand, if it is VDP output you are concerned with, there are many print options in DesignMerge to improve the print speeds of variable jobs. If you are having performance issues, please call for assistance on how to improve your performance as we would be more than happy to assist you.

3. As far as the technical support of the software, I think that we go above and beyond to help our customers with questions, and in fact people generally rave about our support. A real person always answers the phone, a DesignMerge expert will take your call immediately, if available, and our e-mail support is very prompt as well. Of course, there are instances where we ask for files from our customers, but this is certainly not a requirement. If we can assist you over the phone, we will, but for complex issues that we cannot easily reproduce, sometimes there is no other option than to work with the customer documents. Luckily DesignMerge makes it easy to send the setup information because it is always stored with the document.

If there is anything that we can do to assist you further, please call me!

Thanks,
Greg Bane
DesignMerge Channel Manager

[Eliot]

Judy,

I urge you not to base your purchasing decision solely on price, but to evaluate both products on the merit of their functionality and how they can meet the requirements of your customers and business needs.

I've just completed an evaluation on DesignMerge which you might find useful. You can review it at [http://www.veedeepee.com/2008/02/designmerge_evaluation.html|http://www.veedeepee.com/2008/02/des...aluation.html]

Regards,

Eliot

[Tequillajane1]

Do you still have that linked? I cannot find it...

[wpb]

I second the abvoe statement "don't decide on price". You'll make up the difference within the first two months you use the product.

I use both CREO Darwin (phenominal) and XMPie (they do great marketing, but not ready for the big time, IMHO).

Both CREO Darwin and XMPie are the same price, yet Creo's solution is lightyears ahead in technical capabilities, speed, and I find it much more intuitive and flexible for volume work.

With these things said... I want to throw a disclaimer out there...

I have never heard about this **new version** of FusionPro -- therefore, my advice above is not relative to that solution. Had I known, I would have snapped a copy immediately - you have the best price-point in the industry and I congratulate you on that -- if you offered a competitive product, I'd give it a try ASAP. I visited the site, but I do not see anything about a InDesign Plug-In version (I see the optional plug-ins for the PDF imposition version, but this will not work for the majority of our needs).

To the FusionPro rep -- where can I learn more about the InDesign-specific version?

Also to the FusionPro rep -- Can you also answer these questions:
(1) Which VDP formats do you support? PPML 1.5 & 2.1, CREO VPS as well? Do you offer embedded resources in your PPML files, or just outputting to a separate .res file?

(2) Do you offer "step and repeat" functionality with "cut and stack" ordering?

(3) Do you support document tagging (one group of documents tagged as a single document where the output printer knows to collate as a group)?

(4) Do yo also allow "Dynamic Media Selection" where we instruct the printer to choose a specific tray for each page?

(5) Finally, in XMPie, in your PDF version, how do you handle re-flowing paragraphs of text with H&J. For example, if I insert a full paragraph with a name merged-in, the paragraph will word-wrap, etc -- as the name is made longer. If we cannot use InDesign to setup our merging, I'm worried about how we would do text-flowing, while still maintaining the file control of H&J that InDesign allows.

Thank you in advance,
WPB

[Gbane]

Hi McKenzie,

Disclosure: I work for DesignMerge - Meadows Publishing Solutions.

I think that you might have our product DesignMerge confused with a FusionPro product. Different company different software.

The most important advantage is that the DesignMerge software can utilize the two most powerful and popular composition engines in the world, QuarkXPress and Adobe InDesign. All of the composition features that you have grown accustomed to are fully supported by DesignMerge. Every aspect of the composition process, including kerning and letterspacing, hyphenation and justification, runarounds, multi-page composition, styling, tables, etc. are all available for you to use. You just take an existing document, and use DesignMerge to "Make It Variable". Your variable output will look just like you did File/Print for each individual data record.

If you would like to see for yourself, please visit:

www.designmerge.com

Thank you,
Greg Bane
DesignMerge Channel Manager
Meadows Publishing Solutions
1305 Remington Rd., Suite G
Schaumburg, IL 60173

(888) 983-6746 (toll-free sales, U.S. & Canada)
(847) 882-8202 (main office)
(847) 882-9494 (fax)

gbane@meadowsps.com
www.meadowsps.com

[Printologist]

> {quote:title=wpb wrote:}{quote}
>
> To the FusionPro rep -- where can I learn more about the InDesign-specific version?

I believe its a plugin to In-Design to export FusionPro Templates.

>
> Also to the FusionPro rep -- Can you also answer these questions:
> (1) Which VDP formats do you support? PPML 1.5 & 2.1, CREO VPS as well? Do you offer embedded resources in your PPML files, or just outputting to a separate .res file?
>

PDF, PS, PPML, JLYT, HP PPML, VDX, VPS, VIPP, and Digimaster PS

I believe you can embed resource in PPML. There are a ton of output settings--more than I can recall off hand.


> (2) Do you offer "step and repeat" functionality with "cut and stack" ordering?

FPImpost supports these together. Also it support infinite stack now.

>
> (3) Do you support document tagging (one group of documents tagged as a single document where the output printer knows to collate as a group)?

Only with Postscript and use of setmedia commands. Subscribe to the FusionPro user form to get more info on this.

>
> (4) Do yo also allow "Dynamic Media Selection" where we instruct the printer to choose a specific tray for each page?

Yes but same as above, only with setmedia commands.

>
> (5) Finally, in XMPie, in your PDF version, how do you handle re-flowing paragraphs of text with H&J. For example, if I insert a full paragraph with a name merged-in, the paragraph will word-wrap, etc -- as the name is made longer. If we cannot use InDesign to setup our merging, I'm worried about how we would do text-flowing, while still maintaining the file control of H&J that InDesign allows.

The typesetting features are more extensive with FusionPro for variable text. Flowing to frames works, but you will have try and see what your asking.