EXPERTONLINE: Steps to Variable-Data Success

What tools should I consider as I invest in variable-data printing (VDP)? My customers are asking for it, but I'm not sure where to start.

First, ask yourself some basic business questions:

• Do I have enough digital print business in the pipeline to justify the costs?
• Are there enough long-term contracts to support the company's investment?
• Can I absorb the risk if those deals are lost?
• Are there other ways to defray the initial cost and reduce the risk?
• Can my current staff and IT infrastructure support digital print—servers, network bandwidth and applications?

Second, to help you approach a VDP decision, consider that typical digital pages come from transaction-based documents such as billing statements and direct mail. They can also come from books—educational or short run—to complement existing offerings, such as large offset runs. As a result, you can provide a mixed offering to your customers so they can lower inventory costs and time to market. Mixed offerings require different skill sets to execute and sell to customers who may be focused on unit cost. Digital technology provides new revenue opportunities for you and new opportunities—and cost models—for your customers, who need to be educated.

After you make the decision to implement digital technology, you may want to start small with a digital cutsheet device, which also operates as a copier, to help defray the start-up costs. Devices such as the InfoPrint 2190 and 2210 offer walkup copy, scan, e-mail and digital print capabilities for cutsheet applications. They deliver this with built-in scalability thanks to support for Adobe PostScript, Portable Document Format (PDF), Printer Control Language (PCL) and InfoPrint Advanced Function Presentation (AFP).

Software such as Objectif Lune PrintShop Mail, Adobe InDesign or QuarkXPress plug-ins allow you to build somewhat complex variable-data applications using familiar tools, such as PDF or Quark for page layout. PrintShop Mail also gives you the ability to cache static information to be placed on the page at the printer to present smaller file sizes and run more efficiently. Other tools, such as PlanetPress, let you build more complex applications and output more efficient datastreams.

PrintSoft PReS, GMC PrintNet and Elixir DesignPro allow you to compose applications through a simple graphical user interface (GUI) or through scripts. These applications require different skills and a better understanding of data formats from host systems or large databases, but the tools are capable of producing PostScript, PDF and AFP as well as other datastreams.

These VDP basics can help you ask the right questions and understand how variable-data printing fits into your business.