Software - Prepress & Design

Industry Trade shows have always been ideal events for information gathering. Everything from seeing the latest design and production technology, to networking, to educating oneself about all aspects of the business by attending seminars and “how-to” events led by industry experts. CADlink Technology has always felt that educating customers on how best to maximize the use of features within SignLab was an essential service that the company and our resellers needed to provide users of the software on an ongoing basis.

CADlink seminar topics have been carefully chosen in order to cover a wide scope of users with diverse design and production workflow requirements. The objective of these live, interactive sessions is to empower attendees with additional product knowledge that will save design and production time, lessen the potential for costly errors within the shop and, in effect, increase the value of the investment that SignLab users have made within their software.

A pioneer in signmaking software, CADlink Technology has been developing specific software solutions for large format design and production for over 20 years. CADlink will present a series of seminars that focus on best practice print and cut, sign/display design and production workflows.

SignLab Print and Cut – Experience the difference a dedicated signmaking software package can have on daily design and production workflows.

Not familiar with SignLab? Sessions will focus on key features that are unique to SignLab and enhance productivity, such as Contour cut, Instant Replay, Fluid Mask for SignLab, Serialisation and Vectorization

The wide range of seminars will benefit those who conduct most of their design work using SignLab, or also include files within their designs that were created in other design applications in print-only, cut-only or print and cut production environments.

Visitors to Sign & Digital UK are invited to join CADlink for these FREE seminars on stand M6.

Bullseye Print and Awards has invested in ArtiosCAD design software to develop its offering for low run, cost effective point of sale (PoS).

Having launched the new print website www.bullseyeprint.co.uk earlier this year, ArtiosCAD is the latest investment for Bullseye.  The company has spent eight years building up its digital printing facilities and its Slough, UK-based production facility now has a large format UV flatbed printer (HP FB700) and a CNC cutter (Kongsberg iXL-44), as well as multiple solvent, sublimation and aqueous machinery.

Sales Director Joe Murphy comments, “ArtiosCAD really complements our flatbed UV printer and our CNC cutter because we can produce incredibly bespoke PoS units with no minimum quantities, at a much more affordable price than before. ArtiosCAD takes the technical expertise out of designing for POS.”

ArtiosCAD is a software package designed by Esko that uses pre-designed templates to create point of sale displays and packaging designs. Designers with no previous CAD experience can alter these templates to produce unique designs, with the option of exporting 3D PDFs and flat templates to apply graphics. The advantage of this software is that it reduces the cost of creating a bespoke free standing display unit because a lot of the cost is tied up in having a professionally CAD designed unit, as well as the production itself.

Marketing Director Jack Murphy adds, “We are very excited at the potential this has for small businesses and local charities, because they can now have the same quality point of sale as all of the much bigger organisations. It’s another development in digital printing that levels the playing field, for us and for our customers.”

Bullseye plans to use ArtiosCAD to design a line of off-the-shelf point of sale display units later in the year that can be full colour printed with larger sections available for personalisation. Jack concludes, “These templates will make the whole production process quicker as we won’t have to spend time producing the individual designs in ArtiosCAD. This will reduce the cost for our customers, which is a saving they can then pass on to their own customers,”

CHILI Publish will demonstrate how its online editing solution CHILI Publisher 4.0 brings value to brand owners, as well as anyone involved in commercial print, packaging, digital printing, direct marketing, POS and Sign & Display at Ipex 2014. The company will detail how working with its fully customisable online editing tool creates new business opportunities, and allows operations to extend the online editing capabilities for a wide range of applications.  CHILI Publish will be exhibiting on stand N2-C185, together with its UK distributor Workflowz.

"Building on the successful development of CHILI Publisher for the commercial print market, we are expanding our offerings to other markets including packaging, digital printing, POS, Sign & Display and brand owners. Ipex is the perfect opportunity to showcase the capabilities of our solutions to these markets," says Bram Verniest, CMO of CHILI Publish.

CHILI Publish welcomes the Ipex platform as an extension of its ethos of embracing customer feedback to keep pace with markets needs and demands. This is exactly how some of CHILI Publisher 4.0’s functionality was expanded: “Next to online editing, our customers have been asking for mobile editing capabilities,” says Verniest. “With version 4, we broadened our offering with not only editing in a browser, but also enabling users to edit documents directly on mobile devices.”

CHILI Publisher 4.0 supports all types of work environments including Flash, HTML 5 and any new technologies that might be developed. This allows customers to expand into markets they may not have been able to reach before. It also provides clients and partners with confidence that it will remain a trusted tool for online editing well into the future. “We can help customers to expand into markets and applications such as mobile ecommerce, translation, approval, direct marketing, brand portal, and other applications they’ve designed for their customers. And being platform-independent, CHLI Publisher is ready for whatever new applications our customers could develop in the future."

CHILI Publisher 4.0 features a broad range of tools which are typically also available in Desktop Publishing software but it adds unique features that enable users to extend the value of the online editing experience. For example the 3D visualisation tool that lets users present their personalised documents in 3D environments, for example a personalised sign visualised on a bus stop shelter, with that shelter placed on a street, with people around it.

A detailed overview of all features in CHILI Publisher 4.0 can be found on the company's website.  Please visit www.chili-publish.com for more information.

Anyone interested in online editing and keen to learn more about the opportunities can already book an Ipex demo online at www.chili-publish.com/contact/ipex2014, and receive a personalised bottle of CHILI Publish's home-brewed Spicy beer.

In an effort to continuously improve customer service, CADlink has announced a major revision to its prior UK technical support policy for all brand name software products.  With immediate effect, CADlink will provide free technical support on new product purchases for a period of six months. Upgrade purchases provide three months of free technical support from time of purchase.

Customers within the UK are also able to extend their CADlink-provided technical support services for a period of 12 months at a cost of £200 or £50 per single support incident. CADlink will provide support for current versions of software in addition to versions 2 generations back from the current release. Additional technical support coverage cannot be purchased for any versions of CADlink software that are older than 2 versions prior to the current one.

Corel has announced a cashback promotion on CorelDRAW® Graphics Suite X6, CorelDRAW® Graphics Suite X6 Small Business Edition and Corel® Photo & Video Suite X6. Customers who purchase a full version of the software up until Tuesday 31st December 2013 are entitled to claim up to £90 cashback.

CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X6 includes a new typography engine, advanced OpenType® support, website design software, and photo editing, style and colour enhancements. Show your true design style when creating everything from distinctive logos and signs to flyers, car wraps and websites.

Corel Photo & Video Suite X6 allows you to create your best photos and videos ever. Combining the creative power of PaintShop® Pro X6 and VideoStudio® Pro X6, this complete package makes editing photos and videos fast and fun. Quickly manage, adjust and edit photos with powerful new 64-bit architecture. Amaze your audience with striking visual effects, Motion Tracking, stop-motion animations and Ultra HD (4K) quality. With all-in-one video production and pro-quality photo editing, this suite has all you need for your photo video life.

Cashback promotion details

To be eligible for cashback on either CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X6 or CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X6 Small Business Edition or Corel® Photo & Video Bundle, users will need to purchase a full standard version of the software (box or download), from through one of Corel’s authorised resellers or the Corel Store.

To claim cashback, customers will neeed to complete an application form at www.corel.com/cashback providing an eligible product code, and proof of purchase. Email receipt of the claim will be provided within 10 days, and cashback will be paid via International wire transfer within 28 days thereafter. There is a maximum of one claim per person.

Cashback value

• Get £90 cashback on CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X6, suggested retail price £399 excluding VAT
• Get £90 cashback on CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X6 Small Business Edition, suggested retail price £699 excluding VAT
• Get £20 cashback on Photo & Video Suite X6, suggested retail price £74.99 excluding VAT

The offer is available in the following countries: Australia, Brazil, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland Turkey and UK.

For more information about CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X6 cashback promotion and for full terms and conditions, please visit www.corel.com/cashback

To visit the Corel Store, please visit www.corel.com

Four Pees, exclusive worldwide distributor of the PrintFactory and ProofMaster software suite, announces the release of version 4.4. The update for the PrintFactory and ProofMaster product range includes additional quality and productivity enhancement features such as the new Printer Media Mode (PMM) format for profiling and calibration and a new white generation tool.

PMM format of calibration

With the new version, the calibration format has changed from DFP (Desktop FingerPrint) to PMM (Printer Media Mode). This change enables the products to facilitate a richer storage format that will support current and future demands. The PMM format is a ZIP file containing at least the file PrinterCalibration.xml, which is a document that describes the content of the PMM and defines the media and mode description, ink-set, driver settings, linearisation and its settings and references to all other files. Other files that usually are part of the PMM are ICC profiles, measurement files (like CGATS files), spot colour tables, etc.

The PMM offers a new concept compared to DFP, named Variations. A variation is a printer profile generated with specific settings making it possible to have multiple variations of the same Printer-Media-Mode. Every Variation can optionally have its own normalisation/standardisation profile associated with it.

New White Generation

With this latest version of the Editor and RIP, the white generation method has changed. The new White Generation is faster and more accurate. This is achieved by a new concept called ‘White Layer’. The White Layer dynamically renders every defined object in that layer to the target plate (usually White). Whatever the colour of the object is, it will be rendered with overprinting white (or whatever plate is specified in the layer) to the output.
The method of generating white is also defined by the layer and can be changed at any given moment to another method. Multiple layers with different specifications are allowed (the order of the layers influences the rendering and thus also the white).

New Drivers

The release adds support and improvements for more than 40 devices from Agfa, Durst, Epson, Flora, HP, Inca, Mimaki, Mutoh, Océ, Polytype, Roland, Sigmajet, SignTronic, Summa and swissQprint. The complete list of printers, features and bug fixes can be found here.

Compatibility & Availability

PrintFactory and ProofMaster 4.4.0 is fully compatible with Mac OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion), besides Mac OS X 10.6 and 10.7 and the common Windows OS (XP, Vista, 7, Server 2003 and 2008). 
Furthermore the X-Rite i1 Pro v2 measurement device is now supported in Calibrator.

PrintFactory 4.4.0 is a free update for all existing PrintFactory 4.x.x users.  Please email sales@print-factory.net or sales@proofmaster.net for more information.