Xmpie alternatives speed vs. competence question

p775

Member
We have only ever used xmpie with indesign, but I keep reading about darwin being roughly 2x faster when processing in most situations. I'm just wondering if there are any realistic replacements considering the environment that I manage... At present, the 2 most "complicated" things that we do is 1. run postcards where the front and back swap out different pdfs based on a code in the csv file. and 2. process cards that have text that is heavily effect laden (beveled & embossed, inner shadow, drop shadow, stroked).

Does darwin sound like a reasonable alternative to xmpie in this situation in hopes to gain processing speed? I use a g5 intel based xeon machine with 2 dual core 2.6 processors (4GB ram). I personally would have opted for a PC since we could have gotten a LOT more hardware for the money, but all of our software licenses are apple based. We can run strictly text based 4x6 postcard files about 5 per second. The postcard data file with effects slows things practically to a crawl clocking in at only 1 record every 2 seconds. This needs to be resolved whether it is by a hardware upgrade or a software replacement. Can anyone help with advice that may get our processing quicker while retaining the same graphic options that we are currently offering clients?
 
What kind of output file are you using?
Optimized PDF, PPML or Creo VPS?

It's a bit academic: the effects are what is killing your performance. Are you using text effects on a variable? If so, you're left up to InDesign's processing ability more than XMPIE's.
 
What kind of output file are you using?
Optimized PDF, PPML or Creo VPS?

It's a bit academic: the effects are what is killing your performance. Are you using text effects on a variable? If so, you're left up to InDesign's processing ability more than XMPIE's.

We have tried pdf, ppml and postscript all with the same speed roughly. Yes, the variable data has many effects applied and our only option if we are to proceed is to get the uimage module for xmpie.
 

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