Freeflow vs MicroPress

[MIBUK]

Hi all!

Has anyone had experience with both and can tell me the good and bad points of both? I know that MicroPress works only with Ricoh, Canon and KM? But, it would be good to know the differences.

Thanks in advance,
Mike.

 

[CSimpson]

Well, I have never used Micropress, but I have used Freeflow MakeReady for a long time.

Freeflow's file system (RDO) is a pain. It saves every page as a TIFF image within a folder then assigns and RDO file that has the job ticket data to that folder to in essence link all those images together. The problem comes when you want to move that data or just browse through your files. Because you’re dealing with link files and tons of them everything becomes cluttered and in some cases you screw up and mess a file up. I would much rather all my data for one job to be put in a single PDF; it is a much cleaner system for data management. Another issue that has come up in the past is because FreeFlow is RDO based I have had to convert jobs to PDF to let a customer soft proof the work. So I usually wind up having a RDO file, a folder full of TIFF files, and a PDF file for every job I do.

There are a few things I wish the program did that it didn’t. For example I wish it could crash number, offset based off a distribution list, and do simple mail merging for address info.

It seems like I hate the product, but in reality I really do like it. It is easy to work and has been pretty much bug free. The issues I mentioned above have been my only real complaints, and since I know nothing of Micropress it is possible it has all the same problems.

 

[UberTech]

I have never used freeflow but I support (tech) Micropress.

Micoropress also saves everything as an image but can be easily saved as a PDF. No linking problems all the data is dropped in one folder. Depends what you want to do with it really. Mail merges are a breeze as is imposition.

Wouldn't recommend it for colour tho.

 

[MIBUK]

Thanks for the replies!

I'm interested in the comment you made UberTech regarding MicroPress and Color. Why wouldn't you recommend MicroPress for colour?

Thanks,
Mike

 

[PineyBob]

Thanks for the replies!

I'm interested in the comment you made UberTech regarding MicroPress and Color. Why wouldn't you recommend MicroPress for colour?

Thanks,
Mike

I was the MicroPress Instructor for K-M when it was just "M". I have also worked on it extensively since the EFI aquisition of T/R.

IMO the MP is fine for color. What alot of people didn't and don't like is the visual grey balance versus a measured grey balance. You're still using and tweaking ICC profiles as you would on any other RIP. If you're good with a spectrophotometer you can smoking color from your output device. If you do a lot of business or pleasing color you might even prefer the MP as the Power Point work just jumps off of the page.

Where it gets tricky and where IMO the knock on color comes from is when you try to balance color across multiple print engines. Truth is it just doesn't work very well. I've gotten to balance across platform but who has an hour to spend calibrating two engines then bringing the color in on both prior to running 1,000 sheets?

The MP is like anything else out there in that it's performance is directly related to your specific job mix. People swear at and by the MicroPress.

 

[UberTech]

Maybe Im talking about Micorpress and KM colour machines. It just doesn't have the grunt to deal with large colour files. It is quite slow. In saying that you could just get the dongles and build a higher spec box.

If you could be more specific as to what you want to do I might be able to shed some more light on it for you.

 

[PineyBob]

Maybe Im talking about Micorpress and KM colour machines. It just doesn't have the grunt to deal with large colour files. It is quite slow. In saying that you could just get the dongles and build a higher spec box.

If you could be more specific as to what you want to do I might be able to shed some more light on it for you.

Question is K-M still using the fiber optic cable for their print link on color?

AFAIK it's still the Harlequin RIP which has never had blinding speed, but I played "Choke The RIP" with it a few times and the files always RIPed and I got pretty close to a 1GB file through it and as you well know how a file is constructed has as much to do with how fast the RIP handles a file.

If anyone out there does B&W tiff blowback for litigation support the MP absolutely SMOKES. We had the old Di620's (2) hooked up and the RIP went through the pages quicker then the engines could print one copy each.

 

[UberTech]

The bottleneck is in the RIP not the printlink. But yeah, it smokes on B&W