Imposition Software Poll

[Lammy]

I have an idea and if there's enough interest I may pursue some engineers and see about getting it made up.

 

[Ultimate]

Hi,

I am with Ultimate Technographics and we have been developing new and innovative imposition solutions for the last 24 years. Our most recent solutions are providing advanced automation for both imposition and for finishing. With the ability to automate dynamic marks, bar codes, banner sheets, XML/JDF/JMF integration and more, we keep on developing new solutions and new versions.

It would be beneficial to all members to give their opinions on what they use (or been using), to give a more complete perspective of "what's out there". Between all imposition software developers and all RIP/DFE software developers, there are lots of choices, lots of features, lots lots...

Perhaps one of us has THE features your are thinking about and want.

Ray Duval
Ultimate Technographics
www . imposition . com

 

[minch]

imposition software

imposition software

I temp for a number of small printers doing prepress and finishing here in the UK and have come across:

Manually in QuarkXPress and InDesign having set up templates for this purpose.

Farukh imposition is a stand alone third party product I have also come across

Xerox EFI RIP with Adobe Acrobat Pro with the Enfocus Pit Stop Professional plug-in.

Heidelberg shops tend to use Heidelberg's Prinect system.

Hope this helps

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

Better doesn't really tell me in what way. I am assuming better also includes compatible and easily integrated into workflow? Many systems use preps templates, and operators may have spent much time perfecting and customising templates.

 

[rich apollo]

Maybe I lack vision, but I think one would have a difficult time unseating Preps. There are some tweaks I'd like to see, but it does about everything.Then again, the lack of innovation from Preps leaves them vulnerable. The tweaks I'd like to see are the same tweaks I wanted to see 15 years ago.

I've run Context, InPosition, Preps, TrueFlow (FlatRunner) and I've played with Agfa's new imposition software. Preps beats anything I've worked with - FlatRunner was my second choice, though it was a bit incomplete back then.

 

[Munsell]

We're already using a 3rd party. Since our die shop uses Esko Artios to make the layouts, we use the Power Stepper module in ArtPro. We already use ArtPro for 1 up work, so its easy to just pop in links to the layouts and finish building our sheet there. We are sheetfed offset, and run many items on one sheet a lot of the time. That doesn't really allow us to evenly step out an item.

The narrow web flexo shop I used to work at just used the RIP since all we had to specify was the number of teeth on the cylinder, and number across. It would just automatically step everything out accordingly. I cannot see a place like that going to anything other that that.

 

[Davo]

Rich, I read with interest your comment about difficulty 'unseating Preps'. I don't think you lack vision, just data.

Last Friday a press release went out explaining that we've just sold the 1,000th license of Metrix, our job planning & imposition system. About 90% of those Metrix customers replaced Preps with Metrix.

If you look on the main page of our website you'll see a list of customers that we've published profiles on. Most of them were using Preps before purchasing Metrix and they haven't turned back. Download a few and have a quick read - very compelling. Japs-Olson is one example of a very long-time Preps user - they said their only regret in the decision to drop Preps for Metrix is that they hadn't done it sooner!

We have customers with Rampage, Prinergy, Apogee, Nexus, and many others. Metrix works wonderfully with pretty much any prepress system, connecting either via JDF or imposed-PDF.

I worked for many years on the Preps team at ScenicSoft, Creo & Kodak, I can attest to what a great piece of electronic stripping software it was, but, as you've said, it's about on-going innovation. Metrix is what people graduate to when they've run their course with Preps ;-)

 

[zoran]

We ditched Preps in a weekend for Signa Station from Heidelberg and never looked back.
Before that I thought Preps was the best of the best.
As Davo pointed already, I was missing data too about other systems out there
Signa is much more powerful software than Preps and you can do much more with it.
Don't get me wrong, I can not tell you if it is the best since I have not tried all imposition software out there but I did try several.

Again, your milage may vary depending what you consider to be the most compelling feature for you, maybe you need integration with workflow, maybe you need speed, maybe you need native interface which is the only wish I have for Signa and other Heidelberg products side they use Java which I dislike visually, etc...

For quick digital impositions, I would always grab Quite Imposing over any other software, quick and simple.

 

[seejay]

Used Preps, & Signa. Recently switched across to Apogee impose. Once its configured correctly, by far it is the most intuitive, visual and user friendly imposition tool I've used and wouldn't go back. Been using it for 6 months, we kept preps 'just in case' but so far not had to bring it out of mothballs.
This is not to say that impose doesn't have its weaknesses - there are some features that are missing or just a plain pain in the ass. But on the whole, its strengths outweigh its few weaknesses.

 

[Fatboysmart]

Use Signa and love it.... i feel no need for a different imposition program.

 

[Lammy]

I've used an older version of preps, signastation, dynastrip, and a plug-in for indesign (the name escapes me), and I started out striping negs on mylar. I'm probably wrong but I think my concept would be more natural, and more intuitive than any of the software out here now. I'm no programmer or engineer it may not even be possible. I'm also no accountant so it may not be economical.

The real problem I have, as with my two sided proofer idea, is I have no clue how to even look into development.

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

Preps was a great program till kodak bought it, took all our feed back and then tried to use it for prinergy. The outrageous price of uppgrades and a quark like haughtiness... last uppgrade was way too expensive and was just fixing what needed to be fixed anyway.
I'll be glad if there is some competition as long as they are willing to be more agile.

 

[Magnus]

We use Preps and have just started to use the built in imposition in Fuji XMF. In our case we need a more seamless JDF-integration between our MIS and Prepress workflow. We spend way to much time on imposition simple jobs that shouldn't have to be handled by the prepress staff at all. Once we've managed to set up things 'correctly' I think we will save a lot of time.
I think it's common that printshops got some great software but just don't use it in an optimized way.

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

@Magnus Part of that is that some MIS systems are just not up to speed, and may take 1-2 people half a year of full time work to set up, also programming all the out of the box solutions can be tough. Please let us know how your integration of MIS + XMF goes

 

[Magnus]

@Lukas I will inform you guys about the progress. We use Simutek GKS and they showed us some interesting reference projects. Im sure it will be a lot of work, but it feels like the natural next step of progression in our company.

 

[rich apollo]

A couple of interesting posts. I'm running two-around cylinders capable of running 45" webs. I don't think imposed PDF would be a good fit - it seems like it would make for a large increase in processing overhead.

Agfa's imposition won't work for my purposes since I work in a multi-web shop - it won't support that. They're looking to impose via rules-based automation, but it seems confusing to me to specify an imposition by folds. The products I like allow the user to specify directly where a page will go.

Haven't worked with Metrix. I've heard good things about it, but also heard that it is not usable for web printing, either. Has that changed?

The stuff I'd like to see improved in Preps are:

1) the display. The display for Preps makes it tough to see marks.

2) the ability to use different points for measurement. Preps always works from the bottom left corner - of the flat, page, or object. It would be VERY useful to be able to work from, for example, the bottom RIGHT side of a page. I'm aware of smart marks, but I haven't found them very useful.

3) a hand tool, or scrolling tool - like hitting the space bar in any Adobe app.

4) the ability to change the sizes of individual pages - without using independent pages. At the very least, I'd like to see independent pages NOT bleeding over onto imposition pages. But the ability to change the sizes of imposition pages would be better. Then you could layout roll-fold brochures, or calendars and stuff. This is something that FlatRunner offered that I loved.

Now, I'm not running the latest version of Preps, so I don't know what they've changed in version 6.