Signa Question

[HiTech_Monkeyboy]

Hi gang, hoping someone out there can help me out. Apparently someone at Heidelberg has told some of the higher-ups in the company that Signa can be used to create standing imposition templates that can be pulled in and contain all page size, signature/folding info and trim margins thereby saving time and money by making imposing go much faster and consistent from job to job. Sounds great. Here's the problem. Seems several guys at H-berg know it can be done but they can't tell you how to do it or how to get in touch with someone who does know. If anybody can help or even knows if this is true, I'd greatly appreciate any info.

Thanks,

Monkeyboy

 

[rbailleu]

isnt that exactly why you have signa. did you not get any training on signa? heidelberg will send out a trainer for a fee. 3 days would probably get you going.
do you have stand alone signa and meta or prepress manager with the workflow?

of course the install/repair guys will not help you run the software. they usually suggest a trainer. and they usually have the sales guy call with a price.

 

[Marko]

Signa

Signa

Monkeyboy,

What version of Signa are you using? Are you using it in Printready?

With Printready/Signa we do this all day. We have have standard templates for standard products. With this said, we only have 1 seat of Signa and because of this-it isn't needed as much-just for odd ball stuff that a template was never needed.

Give me more information and I can give you some quick instructions.

HUS has a very good instruction manual written by someone here in the states that is top notch.

Anyone have a copy of Carols classroom book?

 

[HiTech_Monkeyboy]

Hey Guys,

Thanks for taking time to help. First off, we did have some training and it did get us going as far as standard uses of Signa, ie; creating impostions in imposition and montage work modes. We've had to really discover the finer points on our own. We started at version 4.0 and were supplied with a manual for 3.0. Now using 4.5. I've gotten to the point of training others in house to use the software to take advantage of some functions but this standardized template thing is causing heartburn.

Here's what we have: Prinect/Printready workflow with all the prepress modules including signa, meta, metashooter and a Suprasetter. No package or versioning options though. All this feeds H-burg 40" presses.

What we were told is that Signa can be used to create templates that hold the page size, sheet size and trim margin information and can be brought in to make a continuous job of multiple sigs that we can customize to fit most jobs and eliminate having to create a completely new imposition every job. That said, we can export/import impositions as jdf, export/import job parts and import impos from previous jobs. I've been able to string together imported job parts in a new signa job to get something like we're looking for but the page list won't "jump the gap" from job part to job part so we'd wind up placing pages by hand. That just opens up another chance for errors.

Hope this makes more sense.

Monkeyboy

 

[Marko]

Signa

Signa

Monkeyboy,

Automation in PrintReady comes in a few different degrees.

We dont have all the options but I am familiar with them.

In a basic workflow-you could create an automatic imposition that sets say your imposition (sw, 8 up, high folio, etc...) but no set number of pages. When you rip a job into PR, you import that layout and one of the menu options is number of pages-that adds the correct page count and imposition. The page size has to be set first (ie-the template would always be 8.5x11 pages)

Printready also has autosheet and autopage which waits until a set number of pages are put into printready and will proof the sheets (or plate) as they are approved.

Finally if you have the whole HUS MIS system it can really automate everything all most from the csr side of things-At the MIS system-the csr creates the job with the correct processes and information and it creates the Printready job, hotfolder, sequences, etc... It waits for the files and places them (according to page number) and shoots out proofs when all is approved.

Depending on how standardized your work is, it really could be "lights out" prepress. (Yeah I know thats a Creo term). The problem with that is "standardized"-it can only be so smart.

And you are correct as far as the tech guys-the guys that come in to fix the platesetter will not know how to do most things in the workflow-even the ones that have been around. The guys you need to get with are in support and even then some better than others. As far as Printready/Signa goes-I would ask for Jim R, Don, and Carol. No offense to the others but they seemed to be more versed in Printready when I was dealing with them on a day to day basis.

 

[HiTech_Monkeyboy]

OK Marko, that automatic imposition thing is seemingly on the right path and I've been able to make it work in testing. Perhaps we've found where the grail is hidden. Thank you for pointing in the right direction. Haven't gotten into it far enough to find out if you can add an 8pg and a 16 for example and use 1-8 and 2-16s while keeping a single page list. Unless you know that may just take some trial and error... and error.

Thanks,
Monkeyboy

 

[Marko]

Signa

Signa

hmm,

I dont believe that would be possible with the automatic imposition-though you can create templates with different sheet sizes, binding methods, placing modes, etc... As long as the page numbers stay the same-just call up that template and populate the page list in the correct order.

Still beats the hell out of creating the job in Signa each and every time.

A good set of templates is the key to quick and consistent work coming out of the workflow.

I've used, installed and demo'd quite a few workflows and I have been happy with Printready. it doesn't always have "all" the features some workflows have nut the ones it does have are rock solid.

 

[HiTech_Monkeyboy]

Automatic mode will not allow more than one press sheet, at all. That sort of limits the usefulness of the whole thing since not every job is 16, 32, 48, etc. and my planning dept would howl and shriek like a banshee if I told them that we only do 4pg sigs from now on. So the end result is yes, it will do it but with all the grace of a giraffe on rollerblades. Thanks a lot Marco, really appreciate the help.

Monkey

 

[prepressguru]

Hi what you are looking for is called a job template.

You can create a job template from any of the different modes in Signa. Once you have say finished an imposition in Signa look to the left hand side were you see the information tree/structure of the job. The top folder/icon right click and save as a job template. If you look at your resources (mark, plate templates, schemes, etc.) in signa there is a folder for templates. This is where these job templates will be saved.

So here is how it would work the next time you do a job imposition. If you are working in Printready and create a new imposition the interactive way (create layout) and it launches Singa. It starts with the imposition job wizard. On the first step near the centre top (but more to the left) there is a folder icon for job template. Load in your job template from the Signa resource and then click the arrow at the bottom right with the vertical line, so it skips to the end. Now your imposition is done and should have all the settings. Easy peasy!

This feature is great for a lot of repeat jobs with the same impositions.

Good luck!

p

 

[herbert]

Jdf

Jdf

Hi all

We are just at the start of JDF implemenation with Heidelberg, this will quicken up impo creation in the prepress workflow.

Thanks

Dan

 

[HiTech_Monkeyboy]

Job Templates

Job Templates

Hey Guru, thanks. I was looking at that as a possibility when I got the notification about your post. You saved me some time in tracking down the how-to. The suggestion of having a job template that gets re-used and modified was not as well received as I had expected it would be and the fact that the auto impo will only use one sheet and impo at a time wasn't the news that was wanted, in fact, "there's got to be some way to make it work."

Herbert, thanks for bringing up the jdf workflow but I was under the impression that wouldn't work without the H-beg MIS?

Thanks again, and please, any other tricks or info is appreciated. Off to go tilt at windmills again.

Monkeyboy

 

[prepressguru]

Hey MB..

Sounds to me like you are between a rock and H-berg place.
I re read your original question and it sounds to me that the job template would fit your request? You might have to end up making several job templates for the types of work you do (eg 8 page saddle, or a 300 page perfect bound etc.) and then use the appropriate one when necessary without modifying them. Of course there is always going to be the exception. What kinds of impositions would you be running is it very standard/simple or mixed?

Now if you are saying you want more automation like operator drops in a 32 page file it process's it and automatically picks out the correct imposition? I am not aware if Printready can do this. Plus it might be license dependent. Also you would have to do all the work behind the scenes for all this automation to work. Such as creating all the job templates in signa and in Printready building all the custom templates and linking it all together.

Might be best to drag the person from H berg, who told your hi ups this can be done, into your office and sit them in front of the computer and make it happen.

Goodluck
p

 

[rbailleu]

["Might be best to drag the person from H berg, who told your hi ups this can be done, into your office and sit them in front of the computer and make it happen. "]

thats exactly what heidelberg wants you to do. pay for training.

 

[chiefy]

Signa

Signa

We have the whole circus here except working MIS intergration. We have quite a few people using signa and they all have different quirks and styles so i tried to set up good templates. Most of them dont like using the 'auto impo' tool because very few of our jobs are made up completely of one folding sheet style, we almost always have different covers and then a mix of 16's, 8s and 4s. We also prefer to keep our jobs with a single impo with multiple parts rather in order to keep the page list logical.

We do use job part templates to quickly build complete impo's in Signa and also complete Job Templates for repeat/similar jobs and this is very quick once you know Signa, but also sometimes i think its just as quick to build a new job through the wizard using minimum/maximum head/foot margin and auto gaps etc.

One other method i do use that nobody has mentioned yet is to to creat 'add layout' templates in Cockpit. Create a standing impo in signa and then 'print' the jdf job back to a secure location on the server that wont get deleted and name it accordingly. Then as an admin user in Cockpit/prinect go to templates and create a new 'add templates' choose the jdf of the impo you just created, give it a custom page list name and if you want create a product part. When you add this template to a job in Prinect it wil pull in the impo and page list and if you add it to a group you can include 'auto assign' rules in the qualify. You then just need to create a template for every common impo you use ie. 16pp_A4_640x910_sm102p. If you use these then you dont even need to have a signa licence or open signa unless you need to change something. It has limited use but works very well for common repeate jobs. I have some jobs that an operator barely touches, the job gets created with a group and then the customer uploads via RA and then it assigns, proofs and plates after online approval.
The only other comment is good luck managing and keeping upto date the various standing impos and templates and also its difficult getting operators to trust the templates and they often prefer to do the whole job themeselfs to avoid importing previous problems.