August 5, 2008 – Boston, Massachusetts and Appenzell, Switzerland – GMC Software Technology, the standard in personalized communication, today announced a significant new release of its popular PrintNet? Designer software. PrintNet Designer enables rapid creation and production of complex personalized documents for direct marketing, on-demand publishing, customer correspondence and transaction applications. PrintNet also helps businesses develop hybrid transpromo documents, such as financial statements enriched with integrated marketing messages. With PrintNet Designer Version 5.2, users keep pace with the demands of personalized communications through added functionality for integration with third party applications, as well as usability enhancements.

“We pay close attention to how the market evolves and how our customers’ needs change, so that we can ensure PrintNet software is always at the forefront with the right capabilities,” said Dr. René Müller, CEO of GMC Software Technology. “With PrintNet Designer 5.2, we focus on ways to make our software more usable in a wider range of conditions that our customers face as they grow and expand their communications strategies and services.”

New PrintNet Designer 5.2 highlights include:

RTF Workflow
Rich Text Format (RTF) is a document file format for cross-platform document interchange and it is an important standard for managing the myriad platforms and data sources needed for personalized communications. In Version 5.2, RTF import handling has been rewritten for improved support of tables, embedded images and embedded variables. Automatic input mapping to RTF field names makes it easier for developers to make full use of the RTF standard by reducing time-consuming programming steps.

Process Improvements
Process improvements can be an untapped source to greater productivity and cost savings in communications production. The latest PrintNet process improvements simplify migration from legacy applications such as Word MailMerge. The entire document can be ported directly from MS Word into PrintNet Designer. Variables are still treated as variables in the new application and document formatting is retained, so users don’t waste time recreating their original document.

Version 5.2 opens PrintNet document development to non-GMC applications such as Microsoft Word. This encourages more collaboration in the development process and eliminates added steps for conversion, handling and coding. Transpromotional messages can be created in these non-GMC applications and automatically used within the production application without any programmer interaction, saving time and money.

MindFire integration
MindFire is the leading ASP in the Personalized URL (PURL) space and PrintNet Designer 5.2 offers integrated support for PURL data creation, MindFire jobs now process in the same manner as typical PrintNet jobs that use a conventional data file. Their MindFire PURLs can now be automatically appended to PrintNet jobs during proofing and production. The data file is automatically transmitted to MindFire’s servers using a web services link, and the appended data file is automatically returned to PrintNet. As a result, users enhance their direct mail and multi-channel campaigns through multiple points of contact and measurable and immediate response metrics.

JDF Support
JDF is a vendor-neutral protocol for controlled movement of jobs through an entire production process, including spooling, error handling, printing, post-processing and production reporting. Version 5.2 includes JDF support for Adobe Postscript, Creo VPS, HP PPML, PDF and PODi PPML formats. This extends the GMC concept of “design once / produce anywhere” and gives users more workflow flexibility.

Usability Improvements
PrintNet Designer workflow icons have been redesigned to show their functions more effectively and improve their usability. Workflow components can now be sorted alphabetically on the main workflow screen for easier job construction. A new “Report File” function in the production window creates a job report of information typically included with the PrintNet Log, plus all the settings and configurations of all of the modules used in the job. Sophisticated job reports can be created using PrintNet Designer. Applications such as ERP systems gain easy access to PrintNet’s production information for better systems and accounting integration.

PrintNet Designer 5.2 will be available for shipment on August 12, 2008. Current PrintNet Designer users should contact their local office to schedule upgrades.