WorkFlow's

russellhaney

New member
Good Morning everyone,

We are mid-size print shop with a 4up press, I'm looking at all workflows and have came down to 2 that I like.
Printnet and Trueflow. Is there anyone out there that can give me some feed back on these two?

Rusty
 
Re: WorkFlow's

I ran TrueFlow for a number of years. It ran well.

Ask them how you're gonna' run dutch-cuts, though. If I remember version 4 released a more robust imposition application, but be certain. TrueFlow is a great product, but it doesn't support Preps.

Archive and restore functions are extremely simple. Workflows are easy to set up. It can use hotfolders, but I never did. Trapping is good, but be sure to get the Trap Editor.

You'll need a proofing RIP.

All in all, a good system.

rich
 
Re: WorkFlow's

Could you please clarify? I am not quite sure I know what your non-Trueflow version is.
I have some thoughts, but I want to make sure I know what I am comparing against.
 
Re: WorkFlow's

Hello Chris,



We are currently looking to upgrade our workflow, which now we don't have one all we have is a di rip with a prestek platesetter, and hp spinjet for dulux's along with a xerox color copier. We have looked at several diffrent workflows. Esko Odyestar, Printnet, Trueflow, ApogeeX, and the 2 that really stood out was Printnet and Trueflow for there imposition and floating licenses for users. Now with that said I personally like the Odyestar from Esko, looks and feels really modern and really liked Neo for trap editing and last minute changes, didn't like no impo software except for using Preps which we are using now. Well it would be really helpful for your thoughts.



Rusty
 
Re: WorkFlow's

Russel, just a quick correction. Odystar has the ability to use Dynastrip as well as preps for imposition. When using Dynastrip, you have the option to automate imposition.
 
Re: WorkFlow's

Russell,

Well, I have worked with Trueflow since 3.0 (2004).
With one caveat, (OK, two) I would say it is the best bang for your buck. I am such a convert that I tell Screen to give me a call anytime they want someone to know about TF.
I spent two hours showing my system yesterday.
Caveat 1 - Do you do Dutch cuts? If so, their solution is not good.
Caveat 2 - Print and Convert envelopes - If you do the envelopes straight up without angling them then all is fine. If you need to put 4 on a sheet and turn 1 at 33 degrees, etc,
then they do not have a solution for that either.
With that said, TF has changed my life. I am the prepress manager and we have output 60,000 plates in 2 years. I go to sleep at night KNOWING that my proof matches my plates matches my pdf, etc.
I do NOT have to buy some extra unit to go in front of my Epson 7800. I output an outline PDF and away I go. If it shows good on the PDF, it shows good on the proof.
The key thing to look for is this. Is your RIP actually RIPPING the PDF at an early stage? Or, as is more common, is it "preparing" it and you have to actually RIP it EACH time you go out to a printer, platesetter,
etc.
BTW, I do not even worry about transparency, flattening, etc. It all just happens in the background. I drop on my PDFS and watch the magic.
(I have been in prepress since 1990 with a standalone Crossfield Page system. I worked on Brisque for 10 years and thought they would pry it from my cold dead hands. TF came around and I changed in two weeks flat.)
Oh yeah. Make sure and buy a beefy Dell box to put TF on. The extra $5,000 is worth the price.

Just my two cents
 
Re: WorkFlow's

Hi Russell,

I beleive you are looking at some of the workflow components of Prinect, Prinect Printready along with Prinect Signa Station. Prinect is an umbrella name and can cover many different aspects of Prepress, Press and Postpress along with MIS and soon to be Scheduling. Printready was the first workflow designed with JDF at its core.Signa actually started back in 1993 and is one of the most powerful imposition programs around. If you have any questions I can answer, let me know.

Regards,

Mark
 
Re: WorkFlow's

Hi Rusty.

I love these "My workflow can beat up your workflow!" discussions. This one is not too fierce...yet. :)

Actually, it's easy to understand why we all stand up and praise (and sometimes defend) our investments, we have to love them. They're not profit centers, after all, but the right workflow can improve efficiency and SAVE a good deal of money in the long run.

We have been using Heidelberg's Prinect Printready L for just over a year now, and I'm confident we made the right decision. I looked at several packages from all of the major players, including Trueflow, but Printready was the best fit for us, especially since we are an all Heidelberg shop in press and bindery. Printready is a modular system and can easily grow as you do, so adding RIPs, Proofers or licenses for front-end workstations is painless (except that they're not free). The automated options are convenient and powerful, but they are not the best feature of this system...the imposition software is. Signastation is integrated nicely into the package and is the best I've seen for ease of use and power. A packaging option is available (I have not tried it) if you require the ability to nest envelopes or boxes. Also, a ganging feature called Sheet Optimizer is available that provides quick, +relatively+ painless layouts for sheets with mismatched size items. We do have this feature and it saves us at least 1.5 hours a day because we gang a number of postcards of different sizes.

On the hardware front, we upgraded to a fully automated Heidelberg Suprasetter at the same time we bought Printready. The two systems marry together well. We have saved countless labor hours with the new system, and our plates (Thermal NA) are solid performers.

Having lived with our system for over a year now, my overall impression is excellent. There have been minor hiccups along the way, most of which are attributable to operator error and were easily solved. The bottom line is this, we produce more work in less time with the same number of operators, so we have become more efficient. And that goes straight to our bottom line.

Edited by: Helmet_of_Poe on Mar 3, 2008 11:54 PM
 
Re: WorkFlow's

If you're looking for an "everything under the sun" whiz-bang type of system that will handle preflighting, proofing (soft or otherwise), rasterization, etc... take a look at the Nexus workflow. We have three complete systems here and we love 'em.
 

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