"In the past, we have repeatedly found that print shops cover the steps of the prepress and production process with softwares from different manufacturers. With such a constellation, frictional losses occur between the individual steps. In comes Durst workflow” says Hans Peter Schneeberger, Managing Director of PrePress digital - Softwareentwicklung GmbH. But what is the role of pdfToolbox in this? Read to find out what Hans Peter has to say.
The Durst Group of companies is a leading manufacturer of digital printing presses, addressing the wide-format, label, textile, ceramic and packaging printing markets. At the same time, Durst supports its customers in the digitization of industrial production processes. With Durst Workflow, we have developed a browser-based and user-friendly workflow solution that maps data preparation, color management and print preparation within the printing industry in an intuitive way. This enables print shops to efficiently handle all steps from the receipt of data to production under one interface.
To achieve this, we have integrated OEM products from leading technology providers into Durst Workflow. Since we did not want to design the solution from scratch, we explored which OEM suppliers could contribute suitable software products. For me, callas turned out to be the best provider of automated PDF processing. The integration of the OEM components was relatively easy due to the open interfaces. A challenge was rather the compilation of the workflows so that they are comprehensible for the user, and above all the simplification of the complex technologies.
Within Durst Workflow, callas pdfToolbox takes over the part of data checking as well as data preparation and correction. If the incoming file is not a PDF file, pdfToolbox generates one. More than 100 different Checks are then run in the background, which can be customized by the user for his/her workflow. Detected errors are corrected automatically, if desired. The user then receives a meaningful presentation with all production-relevant metadata, including a preview. The view also lists those errors that cannot be corrected automatically but require manual intervention by the user using Fixups (corrections). After each correction run, a new version of the PDF file is generated, including an updated preview. In this way, the user can track the changes he has made in the log and also has the option of reproducing previous versions. Up to 7,000 files are currently checked, prepared and made available for production with a single installation per day for larger customers. Automated compilation of production jobs and assembly is handled by the workflow, and subsequent color management and ripping are handled by ColorLogic and Global Graphics respectively.
We also use callas technology for assembly, such as label printing. In Durst Workflow, we calculate how many print items fit on one printed sheet. We save the result of the assembly as an HTML file, which we then transfer to callas pdfChip. This solution generates a finished, imposed single- or multi-page printable PDF file in the selected production length, which is transferred either directly to the integrated RIP or to any RIP in the production plants' existing infrastructure. This means that the Durst workflow can be used for automated data preparation regardless of the selected RIP landscape in the production plants, as well as cloud-based transfer of entire impositions to RIP stations (RIP satellites) in the production plants.
In the next development step, we plan to use the Process Plans of pdfToolbox in Durst Workflow to map corrections in PDF files even more flexibly. I look forward to more collaboration with callas.