PSL Jetletter and .pdf workflow

[Shawnd]

Is anyone else using Jetletter in a .pdf workflow? I need to know how good it is for placing a .pdf in and then adding variable data, NOT building it from scratch in the software.

 

[dmetech]

I do that frequently, and it works perfectly.

 

[Shawnd]

Can you give me more info on this, better yet would you be able to do a video on how you do it? I can't find jack on the net about jet letter and how it handles .pdfs, just really old youtube generic videos.

 

[namelessentity]

Jetletter is basically designed for a PDF workflow. You just link your PDF, add a text box and then link the data. You can do advanced programming if you want, but a lot of it is simple and visual.

 

[dmetech]

Can you give me more info on this, better yet would you be able to do a video on how you do it? I can't find jack on the net about jet letter and how it handles .pdfs, just really old youtube generic videos.

You should contact them directly for a free trial or demo.

 

[Shawnd]

You should contact them directly for a free trial or demo.

I did, they had no idea about .pdf workflow during the demo.

 

[kdw75]

We are going to check out Jet Letter. It was time to upgrade FusionPro and it is now a subscription service of $1,500/Mo. for what we have. I asked if they offered any discounts or incentives for current Ricoh customers or FusionPro customers and the answer was NO. They said they had previously offered a discount for the first year, but no more. So I figured I would shop around.

 

[Shawnd]

Jetletter is basically designed for a PDF workflow. You just link your PDF, add a text box and then link the data. You can do advanced programming if you want, but a lot of it is simple and visual.

Can you make a video of this? I am sure others would like to see it as well.

 

[namelessentity]

When I have some downtime I'll try to make a video with something generic so I don't expose a client's info. Do you have a specific thing you want it to do?

 

[Shawnd]

Sure, place a "customer provided" artwork for a postcard and add a permit and variable addressing of course, it would be great to see how it would fix artwork that is not sized right, maybe bleeds off, stuff we have to deal with everyday kinda deal. Maybe fix a logo that they sent in the artwork with a different one.

Curious to see how it compares to Xmpie/Indesign to fixing customers artwork, as that is something we have to do quite often.

 

[Shawnd]

Also would love to see how it deals with Variable Images and say linking a column in excel "Front1.pdf" and "Back1.pdf", "Front2.pdf" and "Back2.pdf" something we do quite often in Xmpie when we combine several different cards into 1 presort and print job.

 

[namelessentity]

You can't do fixups in it. Think of your PDF as a shell layer and you're adding your VDP layers on top of it. You'll still need InDesign/Pitstop to fix and prep the files first, unless it's something basic, like adding an Indicia or generic text boxes
Typically my design/prepress guys get the file ready and I just add the address and barcode to it.

You can definitely do what you're asking with unique fronts and backs though. You just do exactly what you do in xmpie, and then you use a function called "merge" that is basically just an "if" statement saying to use that PDF if the database says to.

Here is a quick video of a 4up 5x7 postcard with 8589 records. First time I've ever made a video for youtube, so hopefully it works ok.

EDIT: I'm running an i5-8500 (3ghz) with 16gb ram. Windows 10 pro, just in case anyone is curious.

 

[joshlindsay]

You can't do fixups in it. Think of your PDF as a shell layer and you're adding your VDP layers on top of it. You'll still need InDesign/Pitstop to fix and prep the files first, unless it's something basic, like adding an Indicia or generic text boxes
Typically my design/prepress guys get the file ready and I just add the address and barcode to it.

You can definitely do what you're asking with unique fronts and backs though. You just do exactly what you do in xmpie, and then you use a function called "merge" that is basically just an "if" statement saying to use that PDF if the database says to.

Here is a quick video of a 4up 5x7 postcard with 8589 records. First time I've ever made a video for youtube, so hopefully it works ok.

That video was awesome. Thanks!

 

[Shawnd]

Thanks for doing that Tom, I really appreciate it. That gives me an idea on the steps you have to do for a .pdf in PSL. How are you handling your output, are you making master and merges and linking them in the Fiery?

 

[namelessentity]

We have a Canon Imagepress 10000 with the PrismaSync RIP. I usually just drop the PDF directly into a hotfolder since the RIP is pretty fast, but Jetletter can also export a PPML file to send to your RIP for really large stuff.