Smartstream for InDesign - How to get full version

[littly_kittly]

I have been using this Smartstream trial plugin for InDesign:
https://h20392.www2.hp.com/portal/swdepot/displayProductInfo.do?productNumber=HPSSD-TRIAL

I use it to generate personalized documents that I have made in InDesign/Smartstream as PDFs.

It has now expired after 90 days. Where can I purchase the full version. I can't seem to find it anywhere. I have tried contacting HP, but doesn't seem to have much luck. They only want to sell me the HP Smartstream server (for £30, 000) but I don't need their Hardware as I am fine generating PDFs on my own system.

Thanks for any help.

 

[DCurry]

Do you have an HP Indigo? I'm not entirely sure that HP sells this software unless you have an Indigo, but I could be mistaken. If you have one, I would think you could contact whoever provides support for it at HP and they could steer you in the right direction. I know when I worked in a shop that used it, I had to log in to HP with a user name and password to gain access to SmartStream downloads.

If you continue to have difficulty finding someone to sell it to you, you might want to look at Printable's FusionPro as an alternative. It's been a over a year since I've used SmartStream, and I can't remember how much it cost, but I remember thinking it was expensive for what you got and FusionPro packs a lot of bang for the buck. It can work with InDesign as well, or you can start with any PDF and go from there.

 

[littly_kittly]

Thanks for your help!

Do you know if there is any personalisation solution that lets you recolour vector artwork via a database.
I use Smartstream to create personalised childrens books. The customer can select the hair colour, skin colour etc of the characters in the book. At the moment, I produce a different piece of vector artwork for each of these colour options. It would be great if I could just produce one item of artwork and have it recoloured via the personalisation software. Are there any software solutions that allow for that?

Thanks!

 

[DCurry]

Hmmm, I don't know if there is a solution for that or not. I kinda doubt it based on what I've seen from various VDP solutions, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

The only thing I can think of off the top of my head is for you to pre-make all the different colors needed for each element of each illustration, then use the VDP software to trigger which color gets used. It's not really changing the color of the existing vector artwork, but rather swapping it out for a differently colored piece of art that looks the same.

You'd have to create the individual elements and layer them on top of each other in InDesign to look like one illustration. By that I mean you would have the character's hair as a separate image, and you would have that hair image available in different colors. Same for the skin colors, clothes, whatever you want to be variable. Then, in ID you would place the main illustration, then place just the hair in the correct position so the VDP could swap it out to whatever is called for. With this solution, you'd have to limit the color selection rahter than let the customer pick just any color they can come up with.

Hope I'm explaining clearly enough - makes sense in my head!

 

[pcmodem]

I have not used SmartStream so I don't know if this is possible. What about copying the artwork from Illustrator and pasting into InDesign? This would allow you to have the vector paths directly with InDesign and you can change the color of the hair possibly with a rule.

 

[herrmueller]

Most of this could be done with ExtendScript. [Adobes brand of JavaScript] It can be used to automate the majority of Adobe products.
How are you getting the data from the customers choices?