CMYUK, Shrewsbury: CMYUK customers are increasingly turning to Fiery Prep-it, a software solution for the prep, layout, and automated production of print-for-cut jobs. It heralds a new era in pre-press efficiency and material savings.

One of Prep-it’s most compelling features is its universal compatibility. It seamlessly connects to any RIP, printer, digital cutter, or router capable of processing PDF files. This interoperability bridges the gap between various equipment brands, allowing businesses to leverage their existing equipment to its maximum potential and significantly enhance production efficiency.

Prep-it’s innovative free-angle true shape nesting technology optimises specified surface dimensions by placing jobs as a group in the most space-efficient way possible. This automation quickly arranges single or multiple jobs, including those in multi-page PDFs, into compact nests that minimise material waste. This consolidation ensures jobs are quicker to print, further increasing overall printer productivity. Tighter nests reduce cutting times, freeing up cutters and routers to move on to the next job more quickly.

Prep-it saves hours of manual prepress time with fast and easy cut path and layout preparation. Compared to manual methods, it cuts down on setup time by 90% and reduces material consumption by an average of 33%.

Prep-It also allows for the setup of an unlimited number of hot folders with predefined actions assigned for error free job preparation. Thanks to JavaScript Object Notation (JSON ) integration, Prep-it can achieve hands-off production automation from prepress workflows, MIS, and web-to-print solutions.

Users can easily tile oversized rectangular and irregular shaped jobs automatically with no limits on size and the number of panels. Advanced functions such as overlaps, gaps, oversize/bleed, extra white area, and eyelet placements can be produced. Furthermore, a variety of cut marks and barcodes can be added, but with an option to override and use manual placements.

Amira Bouchiba, Manager of the CMYUK Academy, responsible for customer production audits and training said, “Since its launch in 2022, Prep-it has gained a reputation as an excellent software solution from true shape nesting and cut path editing, through to double-sided printing and automation. We offer a comprehensive online training package with this software, and we are witnessing the immediate impact Prep-it automation is having on our customers’ workflow and production cycles. Automation for wide format has become a hot topic and we can only see it increasing.”