Product Spotlight: PRISMAcolor Manager—On Cloud Nine
Canon’s PRISMA offerings include a wide range of applications and tools to help optimize print production workflows and digital printing production. These solutions have amassed over the life of PRISMA and have adapted to the changes in technology and production requirements, as their use requirements have changed significantly over the years. David Zwang takes a close look at how PRISMA has evolved, focusing especially on a recent addition to the software suite: PRISMAcolor Manager.
Product Spotlight: Getting Product Personalization Right with LiveArt
Consumers are no longer satisfied with only buying mass-produced products. Online and brick-and-mortar print shops have offered B2B and B2C buyers the ability to customize printed products, but the process is sometimes complex and hard to understand. Pat McGrew looks at LiveArt’s web-to-print services which address the gap between off-the-shelf web-to-print solutions available in the market and the growing needs of printers requiring more custom-tailored solutions for their clients.
Bring Agility to Your Print Business with First Line Software
It can be challenging for print businesses to be agile, particularly production printing rooted in small-batch, custom manufacturing. To reach the peak of business agility, you may need to be agile using software and software services. Pat McGrew and Ryan McAbee look at how First Line Software’s custom software and data solutions can help improve print business agility.
Print Software Product Spotlight: Web-to-Print Solutions that Adapt to Your Needs with Customer’s Canvas
Sometimes the hardest part of taking advantage of the available marketplace is having tools that work they way you need them to. One size does not fit every situation. That is where Customer’s Canvas comes in. The team at Aurigma work with their clients to craft the web-to-print solution that will work most efficiently for their business.
Fiery Preflight Pro: Troubleshooting Jobs “Within” the Workflow
EFI Fiery DFEs have been driving digital printers for over 30 years. As the digital printers and the market requirements they serve change, there is a need to bring more automated preflight to the production floor to ensure process consistency, EFI has ensured that their DFE meets those challenges with their customers in mind. This includes the newly released Fiery Preflight Pro, available for Fiery FS500 Pro and newer servers.
Product Spotlight: Canon Press Automation Modules—Optimizing and Simplifying Printing
With the aging out of skilled labor in the print and packaging industry, engaging and training new hires in the intricacies of print is becoming a problem. David Zwang looks at Canon’s Press automation modules, which can simplify the process while optimizing quality and productivity for new and even older digital presses.
Keeping the Pulse of Your Print Operation with Canon PRISMA Tools
Pat McGrew and Ryan McAbee take an in-depth look at Canon PRISMA Tools for data analysis and accounting, which monitor the operational pulse and direction of your a operation. These tools can help staff take quick and decisive actions to keep production running smoothly and make better print production decisions.
Workflow Automation Product Spotlight: EFI Fiery JobFlow—Job Prep and Prepress Automation Made Easy
Automated workflows are discussed a lot, yet the vast majority of print service providers still don’t have a comprehensive job preparation and prepress automation workflow in their operation. Fiery JobFlow is an easy to install and easy to use solution.
Print MIS Product Spotlight: PressWise
Jennifer Matt takes an in-depth look at PressWise by SmartSoft, a print MIS built simply as a system to remove touchpoints in a digital printing workflow.
Plan for Profitability with PlanProphet
This Product Spotlight looks at PlanProphet, a specialized, complementary solution to your print MIS that acts as your business virtual assistant. Powered by the industry-leading Salesforce CRM, PlanProphet is a cloud-based subscription software that analyzes customer data and behaviors to identify trends and automate touchpoints.
Product Spotlight: Canon PRISMAprepare Go
Jennifer Matt takes an in-depth look at Canon’s PRISMAprepare Go pre-production workflow solution that can be deployed and optimized in a small print facility whose primary business is processing small “upload and print” orders.
Web-to-Print Product Spotlight: MyOrderDesk by Print Reach
Jennifer Matt takes an in-depth look at Print Reach’s MyOrderDesk, a product that has not only stood the test of time but has now become a foundation block in Print Reach’s automation strategy, with a feature set that clearly reflects a product that has evolved with the times and continues down that path.
Web-to-Print Product Spotlight: Liftoff
Jennifer Matt takes an in-depth look at Liftoff, not a traditional web-to-print solution, but one that has expanded its feature set into other software areas (e.g., CMS, ERP). For example, the Liftoff product suite allows you to create content like blogs on your web-to-print solution.
Print MIS Product Spotlight: EFI’s Midmarket Print Suite
This Print Software Product Spotlight looks at EFI’s Midmarket Suite. EFI’s “suite” approach to software solutions essentially pre-packages a group of products that already work together to solve end-to-end workflows.
Print MIS Product Spotlight: Lift Software
Lift Software Print MIS/ERP was invented inside a large wide format printer. That alone will tell you a lot about how Lift perceived the challenges of running a print business. For most Print MIS solutions, supporting wide format has been an add-on to a more traditionally focused offset or digital print manufacturing focus. For Lift it is clearly a deep specialty.
Print MIS Product Spotlight: Sabre Limited/Reseller of PrintVis
The PrintVis Print MIS/ERP is an offering that combines a globally recognized ERP system from Microsoft (Dynamics 365 Business Central), with the print industry specific addon from PrintVis, and in this article we’re featuring Sabre Limited as the implementation partner.
Web-to-Print Product Spotlight: Propago
Most web-to-print software solutions are built inside software companies. Propago was built inside a large commercial printer. This is a unique origin story for a software platform and it tells us a lot about how and why features made it into the Propago product. Print Software Section Editor Jennifer Matt takes a close look at Propago’s web-to-print solution.
Print MIS Product Spotlight: Avanti’s Slingshot
Jennifer Matt reviews Slingshot by Avanti, and feels that its integrated warehouse management, multiple approaches to scheduling, and approach to implementation are its core strengths.
Web-to-Print Product Spotlight: printQ by CloudLab
Jennifer Matt reviews printQ by CloudLab and its modular approach to web-to-print.
Print MIS Product Spotlight: printIQ
The Print MIS/ERP system is the foundation to your overall print business technology stack. It is the system that should run your business. Many Print MIS solutions have and continue to expand their support for a diversified printing operation. One of printIQ’s strengths is its approach to and the execution of a modular approach to supporting additional manufacturing processes
Print MIS Product Spotlight: PrintJobManager
Aleyant PrintJobManager™ is a cloud-based entry into the Print MIS market. Most printers will recognize Aleyant as the maker of the popular Aleyant Pressero™ web-to-print solution. Aleyant is entering the Print MIS market with a stand-alone solution PrintJobManage
Web-to-Print Product Spotlight: Design ‘N’ Buy
Your web-to-print needs to solve two core challenges, the challenge of e-commerce and the unique challenge of selling print online. Design ‘N’ Buy took a different strategy for getting to market with a print-enabled e-commerce solution. They left the e-commerce part to the open-source community by proactively integrating with the most popular open source e-commerce platforms.
Print MIS Product Spotlight: EFI’s Pace
This product spotlight focuses on three areas that we see as the most powerful and differentiating features of Pace; PaceStation, Pace Customization Modules, and Pace Item Templates. The unifying concept with all three of these features is that they allow a printer to “configure” Pace to work for their unique business requirements.
Print Estimating & Quoting System Product Spotlight: arifiQ
Self-service is a growing preference among customers, pricing transparency is a feature of our online world, and speed is a growing differentiator in all aspects of our business. arifiQ has focused on a pivotal function of print – estimating/quoting; enabling printers to adapt to the new realities of our increasingly digital, online, and fast-paced business environment.
Web-to-Print Product Spotlight: MarcomCentral
Twenty years ago when we described the function of marketing we would have started with terms like “creative” and “messaging.” Then we would have talked about distribution channels for getting these creative assets and messages out to the target audiences, primarily consisting of print, TV, and radio.
Print MIS Product Spotlight: PrintVis
The PrintVis MIS solution has a phenomenal product span, meaning the ability to “flex” in both directions, respond to growth and decline. In this Product Spotlight, Jen Matt reviews the PrintVis MIS solution.
Print MIS Product Spotlight: PressWise
The online channel is vital to the future of your print business. The online channel includes all the ways you engage with your customers online. Every new channel you open up with a customer increases the overall loyalty of that customer, creates barriers to entry for your competitors, and has the potential to decrease the customer burden of doing business with you by offering self-service access to your business.
Print MIS Product Spotlight: CoreBridge
CoreBridge is a cloud based, multi-tenant software solution whose business model is subscription based. Like pure technology startups, CoreBridge’s pricing model is easy to understand, available on their website, and allows you to start small and grow with CoreBridge through volume and/or functionality.
Web-to-Print Product Spotlight: PageDNA
This product spotlight focuses on three areas of the PageDNA offering: the store building wizard and project management approach to configuring new storefronts, their open approach to integrations, and the flexibility of their services model.
Print MIS Product Spotlight: EPMS
This product spotlight focuses on three areas of the EPMS Print MIS offering: the continuous expansion of Print MIS direct users, the support for an industry that is aggressively diversifying, and the ability to make EPMS work uniquely for your business through customization and integration.
