Moving from Trueflow SE 7.3 to a new Prepress system

[j@mes]

Hi, I'm new to the forums and I was looking for some guidance if at all possible.

My company is about to ditch Trueflow (which we've used since the very beginning of its conception and Taiga before that ;-)) and move to a new prepress system.

We've had demo's from Heidelberg Prinect, Kodak Prinergy and Fuji XMF and have narrowed down our preference to XMF and Prinergy.

Now comes the hard part, which one to choose... I have looked at a few of the discussions on this forum but there doesn't seem to be anything right up-to-date (unless I've missed one!). Also, there isn't an easy way of having a play with the clients to get a more hands on experience with some live jobs etc, so we just can't tell which one to go for.

Is there anyone who has used these systems recently that could offer guidance at all? Or are both of these systems on a par now?

We also currently use Screens Trap Editor (PDF plugin) to fine tune trap issues on press, but there isn't anything with XMF and Kodak offer a Trap Editing software, but I haven't seen this yet. Are there many people that fine tune their trap after processing or do they just let the 'auto trap' do its thing? Has 'auto trap' moved on a long way since Trueflow SE 7.30 - we had a few issues with it? The bottom line is that we're just slightly concerned that we'll lose this functionality when we change over - some of our printing presses are rather old to say the least and need a little help...

I appreciate these are a particularly open-ended set of questions, so any advice would be greatly received.

Thanks in advance for your time and expertise.

 

[prepressdork]

Hi James,

As I've never used XMF or Prinergy, I cannot speak to those products. As a long time Agfa Apogee user however, I can tell you that automated trapping has come a long way. I rarely have to do any custom trapping (which is achieved through an Acrobat plugin). Have you looked at Apogee at all?

Best regards,
pd

 

[pabney]

We moved from Trueflow to XMF about a year ago or so. So far we love it. Don't have any experience with Prinergy.
As for trapping. I have not ever had to edit a trap and yes, XMF does have the ability to edit trap zones. Not sure why every post I see about XMF says it does not have this ability, but it does.

 

[johnny_jay]

Prinergy does have a PDF trap editor option. We have had Prinergy since 2009 but I will be honest, we have only used in 2-3 times to edit traps on spot colors and we have since made a custom profile for trapping spot colors.

 

[j@mes]

Thanks for the responses, very much appreciated.

pd - We did have a look at Agfa Apogee system as well but to be honest we weren't as impressed with it as much as XMF and Prinergy. The online customer portal for proofing, upload and download apparently isn't quite ready yet, and that's a major factor for us.

Thats great to know about the auto-trap being a lot better - we've fallen behind quite a bit as far as the latest technology is concerned.

Thanks again.

 

[Johu]

Hi James,
out of interest, did you consider Equios as an replacement? The ticket system would be totally familiar as it is almost 100% same as in Trueflow, the automation level is even higher than you can achieve with Trueflow and to my knowledge XMF. Also in the most recent version of Equios almost all jobs from Trueflow can be migrated to Equios. Also trapping should be the same as in Trueflow when it comes to Trap editor (I've only used the standard trapping on Equios so I am not 100% sure about this but I DO know that trap editor still exists). I would imagine that the smoothest transition from Trueflow to any other system would be Equios.

 

[JimBob53]

Having used Prinergy since 2009, have not had an occasion to need to change the trapping... We, also, have very old equipment. My two cents worth.
Blessings

 

[[email protected]]

What type of work do you do primarily? Bound, Folded Flat, are you doing reprints with changes? Can and do you use layout templates? do you need to do any nesting? Do you want to consider doing gang forms? These systems all handle work differently, and based upon what you specialize in, some are better choices than others. Also, in a PDF workflow, prepping a PDF and getting approval can easily be handled outside any of these systems. for Offset output screening and plate generation are considerations, for digital imaging the requirements are all centric around dealing with PDF files.

 

[Duncan Hyde]

Hi James, I'm also going to upgrade from Trueflow 7.3 to Xmf or maybe prinergy. How has your upgrade been going so far??

Regards

Duncan