This page contains an archive of all entries with the category vi languages. Oldest entries appear first.
Frank Romano created a tsunami in the industry earlier this year on a PrintCEO Blog when he attacked suppliers for not standardising on PPML/VDX as a variable information (VI) language. Opinions on this podcast have been widely shared since on industry discussion forums, however, I thought that it would be worth revisiting this topic and draw out the facts from fiction.
It's no secret that Frank is a long-time advocate of PPML/VDX and was part of the committee responsible for establishing this language as a standard; originally an ANSI standard in 2002, PPML/VDX is now an ISO standard (ISO 16612). So, naturally, Frank would speak favourably about PPML/VDX, but he goes beyond that and makes some pretty alarming claims.
Continue reading "Frank Attack" »
Posted on Saturday, 6 October 2007 at 7:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Several months ago I started hunting around for information on variable information (VI) languages. I quickly realised that there's very little information on this topic in the public domain — there are snippets of information scattered across various websites, but they are usually brief and don't provide any significant amount of useful information.
Many different VI languages are now supported across VDP emitters (software) and interpreters (RIPs), but how can you make an informed decision on which is the right language for your VDP work if you don't know anything about the languages themselves?
To help VDP users understand the differences in VI languages, I've published an article which explains all VI languages available, including PostScript, PDF, PCL, VIPP, VPS, PPML, PPML/VDX, FreeForm, JLT, VDF, IPDS, IJPDS, LCDS and Metacode.
This article was published in The Seybold Report last month. If you don't subscribe to Seybold, you should, it's a must-read (sign-up for a free trial on their website). In the meantime, you can download a PDF of the article from Fuji Xerox's website (made available with permission of the publisher).
Posted on Monday, 15 October 2007 at 4:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
PODi have brought their successful Application Forum from the US to Australia for the first time this year. I'm presenting a couple of sessions at the forum over the next two days and I've posted my presentations below for delegates to download.
» download 'VI Languages' presentation
» download 'VDP Composition' presentation
Posted on Monday, 15 October 2007 at 5:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
ISO Technical Committee 130 are currently working on a new standard for 'variable printing data exchange' in PDF; ISO/WD 16612-2. The name is not yet finalised — the working name is VPDF/X-200X, although this will most likely change before the standard is relased, as 'VPDF' is a current product from Verisis. This working draft is based off PDF/X-4 and part of PDF/X-5. It is understood that this standard will be published around Q2, 2008.
It's interesting to see that ISO are still pushing for a standard VDP language. An earlier attempt to create a PDF-based VDP standard through PPML/VDX-2005 failed to gain adoption by RIP vendors (only Xeikon and Kodak support PPML/VDX). However, with the growing success of Adobe PDF Engine, print vendors need to start looking at how they can support a variable-data workflow with Adobe PDF Print Engine. As this engine doesn't use Adobe CPSI (the intepreter used for VIPP, VPS and other PostScript-based VI formats), print vendors will need to ensure that they can run their engines at rated speed using PDF.
Posted on Saturday, 17 November 2007 at 8:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
This week, Xerox announced the release of VIPP Pro Publisher at OnDemand. Originally announced last September at GraphExpo, VIPP Pro Publisher is now available. This VDP software product plugs-in to Adobe InDesign, but before you roll your eyes and say "oh no, not another VDP InDesign plug-in!", it's important to understand how this plug-in works in comparison to other VDP software products that also use InDesign, such as uDirect, Darwin, DesignMerge, InData and several others.
Continue reading "VIPP Pro Publisher" »
Posted on Friday, 7 March 2008 at 12:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
It appears that Xeikon has dropped its free PPML Viewer—this free download has now been removed from their Web site. I'm not sure why Xeikon has decided to discontinue this tool, as they still support PPML v2.1 in their X-800 controller.
As many VDP users appreciate, viewer tools are very useful for troubleshooting and catching any issues before VI files are ripped and printed. Xerox offers FreeFlow VI Explorer (for soft-proofing VIPP projects) and Creo POD offers VI Toolbox (which includes a VI Viewer for soft-proofing VPS files). However, while PODi developed the PPML specification, they rely on other vendors to offer PPML related products and services. Let’s hope that another vendor develops such a tool (or acquires the source code from Xeikon) to offer a viewer solution for PPML users.
Posted on Thursday, 3 April 2008 at 8:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
VDP software vendor, GMC Software, made an interesting announcement yesterday with news that they plan to support Adobe PDF Print Engine 2 and the "emerging PDF standard for personalized content; PDF/VT". This announcement comes as a surprise, as neither the PDF Print Engine 2 or PDF/VT are available yet. Adobe has been keeping it's next version of PDF Print Engine under wraps and has not disclosed any news of a new version. Also, PDF/VT is not yet a published standard.
Continue reading "GMC Announcement" »
Posted on Thursday, 1 May 2008 at 4:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
On the Adobe stand at drupa you'll find plenty of information on Adobe PDF Print Engine 2. This new version of Adobe's PDF interpreter has significant implications for the future variable-data printing. But before I explain why, it's important to first understand what the heck Adobe's PDF Print Engine actually is and does.
Continue reading "PDF Print Engine 2" »
Posted on Monday, 2 June 2008 at 4:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)