We also had a designer on staff that was let go that would constantly complain that he had to "dumb down" his designs for our equipment. It wasn't our equipment that was the issue, it's that he was a web designer, and didn't understand that his designs weren't possible to produce. It'd be like...
My boss loves this because we bill for the fixes. Prepress hates it because it's a bunch of awful work that never goes away because our boss would rather bill than educate.
As for where these people are getting degrees; they aren't. They're self taught and laughably bad at it.
A $10 charge is certainly not actually covering their costs anyway. Gas here is $6/gallon, and I know my techs are driving 120 miles round trip since we're so far away from the service center.
We're a mostly Canon shop so I can help with some of it.
The 8000/10000 are the same machine, just speed licenses. The newer line is the 10010 and the 9010. Again, just speed licenses for the models, but there are some upgrades to the 8000/10000 engine. Mostly in-line calibration and some...
They likely think you're trying to sell the toner. we've had issues in the past trying to get extra toner for big runs. I contacted my sales guy about it and now they let me order 28 bottles at a time :LOL:.
It's a dying industry. I wouldn't tell a young person to enter this profession. The pay generally sucks for the knowledge and work, and the places that do pay well are awful to work for with cameras on you and terrible management.
My Imagepress 6010 used to do this. The machine had an adjustment for it, and I'd bet yours does to. On my machine it was called "trail edge white patch correction".
I found this thread here with the same issue you have...
They have the larger lines like the 10010 and the 9010. Canon seems like they're pushing pretty hard into inkjet though. Our sales guy comes by fairly often with new samples from the Varioprint iX series.
Having worked at Kinko's, customers will be reluctant to use an app. We could barely get them to even press the start button without someone holding their hand.
We have a Canon Imagepress 10000 with the PrismaSync RIP. I usually just drop the PDF directly into a hotfolder since the RIP is pretty fast, but Jetletter can also export a PPML file to send to your RIP for really large stuff.
You can't do fixups in it. Think of your PDF as a shell layer and you're adding your VDP layers on top of it. You'll still need InDesign/Pitstop to fix and prep the files first, unless it's something basic, like adding an Indicia or generic text boxes
Typically my design/prepress guys get the...
When I have some downtime I'll try to make a video with something generic so I don't expose a client's info. Do you have a specific thing you want it to do?
There's a tech shortage in Canon as well. I think the pay is pretty mediocre, and the hours are awful. Our techs all started retiring and no one new is coming in to take their place.
Also, you might want to get in touch with your service manager if your tech is so reluctant to change parts out.
Jetletter is basically designed for a PDF workflow. You just link your PDF, add a text box and then link the data. You can do advanced programming if you want, but a lot of it is simple and visual.
