Vancouver, BC, Canada (June 6, 2003) – Creo Inc. has released UpFront 2.0 software, the newest version of the ground-breaking digital production planning solution. This version of the software further streamlines the flow of data from estimating right through production and finishing. The combination of tighter integration with prepress via Preps imposition jobs and templates, and the new ability to export folding information, in addition to cutting and binding data, directly to the finishing department dramatically increases productivity and reduces errors on press. New features and enhancements in the UpFront 2.0 release include: Tighter integration with Preps and the prepress department Export of multiple section Preps Pro templates Export of CIP3 folding data to the finishing department Partial save of jobs in progress More robust database, allowing more concurrent users Faster lookup of jobs in the job database Faster diagram and Preps marks editing One-sided job diagram printouts improved Re-export Preps templates and jobs and CIP3 data Ability to search for matching press layouts “We first integrated UpFront to streamline and standardize the job planning process,” says Peter Doyle, operations manager, Action Printing, a division of the Gannett Company, in Fond du Lac, WI. “Now at the start of every job, UpFront automatically presents all existing production options in the order of most frequent usage, saving time and preventing errors on press. Once the job is planned, we then send completed Preps templates to our prepress department. The Preps templates are both accurate and laid out to maximize productivity from prepress through the bindery department. “In addition, we realized that we had several pieces of bindery equipment that were capable of reading a PPF file created by UpFront,” continues Peter. “We are now able to makeready finishing equipment with instructions downloaded from a file server and without any manual reentry of information--saving over an hour of production time on each job.”