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#32864 - 04/26/10 02:09 PM Xerox Output Manager / Print Manager
John Price Offline
OL Expert

Registered: 10/07/03
Posts: 164
Loc: Wigan, UK
Xerox have proposed Output Manager or Print Manager as a method of managing our print files and balancing them over our fleet of production class printers.

Not all our work comes via PlanetPress, we have digitial colour work such as leaflets, newsletters, business cards that would usually come via our Graphic Design Service.

However almost all our VDP output comes from Planet Press using both printer centric and optimised postscript streams.

I was wondering if the Xerox application would help or hinder our ability to manage the VDP print files. I like the idea of a single location that all files are sent to to but worry about any license / performance issues with print files being sent to the Xerox server via Planet Watch rather than direct to the freeflow controller.

We have PlanetPress production installed.

Any comments or observations would be most welcome.

Thanks

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#32865 - 04/27/10 08:59 AM Re: Xerox Output Manager / Print Manager
Anonymous
Unregistered


Hi John,

Since you have PlanetPress production, I don't see any activation/watermark issues using the Print Manager. One thing is that the PrinterCentric jobs you mention will need to be adapted to work in optimized postscript stream mode so they can be processed by any printer. It may only involve changing the option, as it could require a redesign of your form, or a part of it.

Another thing to keep in mind is advanced paper handling. If in any of your forms you have printer specific commands to handle your finishing, it will most likely become an issue when sent to a different printer. Either you manage to use only basic paper handling commands and test to make sure the jobs behave well on all printers, or you will have to limit some of your jobs to specific printers. Also if you have resources on some printer hard drives that are needed by some of your forms, they will also need to be sent and managed on all printers.

Bottom line is, technically there is no problem using the print manager with PlanetPress production, but existing forms and logics might not have been designed for such an environment and may need modifications.

One thing I've seen in such environments is a job name flag, identifying PlanetPress jobs on the interface. There were a few printers assigned to PlanetPress jobs and only those with the specific job name prefix would be sent to those and nowhere else. That of course introduces human error possibility if the operator released a PlanetPress job on the wrong printer, but it is still a possibility if redesign is not an option.

Hope this helps. Regards,

Olivier

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#32866 - 04/27/10 10:08 AM Re: Xerox Output Manager / Print Manager
John Price Offline
OL Expert

Registered: 10/07/03
Posts: 164
Loc: Wigan, UK
Thanks Olivier.

I had not thought about advanced paper handling, something we use a lot of.

We will only have 2 types of printers connected to the system, mono (4127) and colour (7002AP) so this may make life a little easier.

I will have to arrange some robust testing of the system before we can take a view on the best way of using it.

Many thanks for your swift response.

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