Indigo_Smartstream

[jinthebay]

Hey Folks. Anyone out there using the SmartStream plugin for Indesign or Quark with and Indigo press for variable data input?

Just curious about how well it works. Good? Bad? Problems?

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

 

[MMC]

We use Smartstream for imposition but have not tried the variable data part as of yet. Overall, I think it is useful for some jobs and a waste of time for others.....

 

[Sherbert]

Used it for years, its decent enough.

What do YOU want it to do?

 

[MMC]

Sherbert, have you found a way to preview the .flt (flyt) files?

 

[jinthebay]

Smartstream

Smartstream

Hey Sherbert,

I went with my production supervisor and company owner for a demo in Atlanta a few weeks back and we were given a brief demo on it using the Indesign plugin. As you can imagine, the demonstrator shows you the "POSSIBILITIES" but will NEVER mention the problems. I hope to be able to use it much in the same way that it was demoed. For variable data. An example would be a charitable organization requesting various quantities for 65 different donors, for postcards. Perhaps each donor would have their own picture from an old seminar, or, I don't know, something specific to that donor. Would I then have one Indesign document with 65 pages? Or 65 layers?
What problems can come up? Crashing? Missing type? Missing pictures?

I have yet to go up for training. I just wanted a little feedback from people who are already using it.

Any feedback is ALWAYS appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Sherbert]

Sherbert, have you found a way to preview the .flt (flyt) files?

JLYT?

Only on the press.

 

[Cardline]

HP Smartstream PDF & PPML Output

HP Smartstream PDF & PPML Output

Hi all,

We've been using the Smartstream Indesign plugin for a number of years now to output variable data to our indigo press.
We have now upgraded to a Konica-Minolta & as this rip doesn't support JLYT files, we have to output PDF or PPML files from Smartstream.

The problem is, for a job with 1000 records of variable data, it takes Smartstream just over an hour to create a PDF, and a little less for PPML.
We don't think this is normal, especially for PPML as the end file is only about 3MB.
We have the same problem using the CS3 version as well as the CS4 version.

Has anyone had any experience with using Smartstream to output PDF & PPML files?

Comments will be greatly appreciated...