IC304 Creo Controller and Variable Data Printing

[mrwho]

Hello there, gang!

I'm quite familiar with VDP on the Fiery boxes, pretty straightforward stuff. But I'm trying to do it on a Creo and have no idea even if it is possible without adding some options. The documentation is lacking, for lack of a better term, and I just can't figure it out.

Can someone please tell me what do I need to do VDP on a Creo box and if it is anything like the Fiery procedure?

Thanks!

[methogod]

what program are you using?

what are you trying to do, is it a file issue, workflow issue? or creo issue?

are you familiar with PPML and VPS?

[mrwho]

what program are you using?

what are you trying to do, is it a file issue, workflow issue? or creo issue?

are you familiar with PPML and VPS?

It basically is a "how do I do this" issue.

See, with a Fiery, you didn't need a particular program to do VDP. You could make the Master document in Word, the Variable Data document in Excel, send them to the Held queue and then the Fiery would just impose the VD on the Master and you're good to go (you needed to mess with some settings, but that's basically it).

On Creo, I see nothing, neither on the documentation nor on the server itself. I understand what PPML and VPS are and what they do, but does it mean we need to aquire a separate software (Darwin or another) to do this? Or is there, buried somewhere on the controller, everything I need to create the needed files without any extra cost?

Thank you in advance!

[Mick01]

Hi,
Creo does not have the fiery VDP type solution built in (Freeform). It does however work extremely well with VDP solutions (Darwin is the best for creo).The fusion board caches all common elements so it Rip's once.
hope this helps.

[mrwho]

Hi,
Creo does not have the fiery VDP type solution built in (Freeform). It does however work extremely well with VDP solutions (Darwin is the best for creo).The fusion board caches all common elements so it Rip's once.
hope this helps.

It was very helpful indeed. That's what I needed to know!

Reps to you! Thanks!

[mrwho]

Hello again!

Browsing through the manual (because I have nothing better to do) I saw this little paragraph that intrigued me:

"PostScript files are suitable for simple, very short run jobs. All page elements are re-RIPed for each page. These jobs do not use a VI authoring tool at all. Instead, they use a mailmerge function in a Microsoft Word document or a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet."

Are we talking about the age-old mailmerge from Office? If so, how do I include the variables on the other jobs? And how do I export to PS? Print to file? Anyone ever done this?