For 30 years, through the halcyon days of digital press development and the software that makes those presses sing, we’ve talked about the promise of delivering variable content to every recipient. Variable content can add value, streamline supply chains, and create engaging customer experiences, but it takes some work. There is more complexity to the creative process, more steps to proof and approval, and more challenges in delivery.

Transaction and direct mail providers understand the issues because they have been producing variable content for decades. From the early days of Microsoft Mail Merge inside MS Word to the volume production of variable content with DocuMerge and VIPP, our history tells us that we can produce variable content successfully, but there are complexities. It takes more planning, and in the current environment, we must know where the data originates. As we try to push variable content in new directions, from signage and labels to packaging, it is worth understanding what goes into variable content production.

In the early days of variable data, products like DocuMerge emerged to insert fixed-length variable data into pre-composed print streams (AFP and Metacode). Targeted to the insurance industry, DocuMerge originally relied on products like IBM’s Document Composition Facility (DCF) and Xerox CompuSet/XICS to create templates that were composed into the final print format. The templates held special placeholders that DocuMerge used to swap out for the intended variable data. Sounds easy, but it required setting up VSAM KSDS databases, designing templates that could hold the right amount of data in fixed-length fields, and lots of testing. It took some work, but the result was more efficiency in printing insurance documents. Preprinted shells were eliminated along with secondary printing touchpoints.