Beginning VDP software

[UberTech]

What VDP software do you use snappySteve? I have had a look at the demo of Printshop mail and on the outset anything really complicated looks like a bit of a coding nightmare with the 'expressions'. Fusion pro looks ok but with no demo it's hard to say.

I would have thought you could have a database full of rules that match up with your customer data. Looks like you hardcode the rules in your template. Not particularly dynamic.

 

[Craig]

Uber, Fusion Pro is da Bomb!

 

[Steve_S]

What VDP software do you use snappySteve? I have had a look at the demo of Printshop mail and on the outset anything really complicated looks like a bit of a coding nightmare with the 'expressions'. Fusion pro looks ok but with no demo it's hard to say.

I would have thought you could have a database full of rules that match up with your customer data. Looks like you hardcode the rules in your template. Not particularly dynamic.

We use PrintShopMail and it works real well for us. I have only seen a brief demo of FP but, as I said before, I am not a fan of banking your functionality on a plugin as you are relying then upon multiple vendors for everything to cooperate. We had Darwin (plugin for Quark) before PSM and I think the stand alone works better.

You do code your rules inside PSM, but I have had no experience with another type, so I could not tell you if one is better or more reliable than the other.

 

[Shaja]

I have had a look at the demo of Printshop mail and on the outset anything really complicated looks like a bit of a coding nightmare with the 'expressions'.

Once you get "your hand on mouse," you'll find that the expression builder in PrintShop Mail is not hard to use. If you can write a function in Excel, you shouldn't have any trouble. To help, PrintShop Mail has a built-in wizard for walking you through the "arguments" for building the expression, and the onscreen explanations for each argument are pretty straight forward. It also shows you a result to help you confirm the expression is written correctly or to troubleshoot to figure out where you goofed.

For most users, the expression builder is enough functionality, but if you want to go crazy with scripting and macros go right ahead