Hello, I am building several Design Documents that are going to corporate 1000+ Variable Images. Is there a way to print a report of what images I have installed? These document get updated daily, and It would help to know what images have have installed to report back to my client.

Thanks,

Dan

Arch1,

I'm not sure I understand what exactly you are looking for when saying "Is there a way to print a report of what images I have installed". What exactly do you want?

Please provide more details.

Regards,
Raphaël Lalonde Lefebvre

Lets say I have 100 graphic objects named:

Graphic1
Graphic2
Graphic3.

I want to print a report that lists my graphic objects.

Of course I am going to have 1000's graphics in my document. I need a way to reconcile what is stored in my doucument.

Hi Dan,

There is no such feature. However, I can already tell you that if you have a form design with 1000's of image objects, your design is very wrong. You must find a way to make things more dynamic/variable, allowing for logics to govern which image is loaded in a single image object. Do not hardcode all possibilities.

Please clarify your environment and needs.

Regards,

Olivier

Well I originally built the document to use the virtual drive to point to the graphics, but that only worked for PDF output, and not a Printer Centric Printer.

This is what we have:
2 page document. 11 x 14
Each page has a PDF graphic for page one and page 2.

Graphics are stored as individual 2 page PDF files.

the data has a column that points to the PDF files.

Currently the Document has more than 100 graphic 2 page pdf files and is working fine, but it is getting hard to manage all thosse graphics in on document. I can send you an example if you like.

Dan

Did I stump the teacher?

Dan...

Are you looking for a report of what's present on the virtual drive or the printer's RIP? If the printer's RIP, what printer and RIP are you using? When you download images, do you always send them to both the local host and the RIP?

What we tend to do is set up an FTP folder for the client to use and have new images that arive in that folder automatically sent to the virtual drive and the RIP. That way, there's never an issue with not having a piece of artwork available to print with.

Jim

Hi Jim, I am actually looking for a report that list the variables in my Design document. I have a client that has 1000's of digital assets that need to be available at all times because we do weekly mailings that can use these assets at any given time depending what is in their data. I am looking for a way to manage the assets and keep up to date with what we add and remove on a daily bases. A reporting feature would be very helpful in this case, I have figured a way in Planet Press Talk messages, but I am stil working on that. We currently Store all the assets in the design document and are setup with a Printer Centric Que with our IR 150. If there a better way to manage the assets other than storing them in the design document I am all ears. Thanks Dan

Dan...

My understanding (always open to finding out I'm wrong!) is that you don't want to store your images/assets/pdfs/jpgs inside your design document. PlanetPress thinks about all those assets inside your design document for every record it processes.

Next slowest is referencing an image over the network via a UNC path:
='\\\\server-003\\myimages\\my.pdf'
From personal experience printing more than a thousand or so records with good quality pdfs with images will cause PP to be mad at you and eventually crash. Many of the other users on the network will also be mad at you.

A little better - referencing an image on your local hard drive:
='c:\\myimages\\my.pdf'

Much better - download images to the virtual drive on the system that you're using Design on - tools, download images, select localhost, then just reference the image as:
=&FrontImage or
=@(10,1,50) or
='my.pdf'
Must print using Optimized with this method.

Best - download images to the virtual drive and the printer that you have a PlanetPress license for, then use Printer Centric when printing. Reference the image as:
='my.pdf' (or any of those other options)
By using printer centric, PP doesn't send the image with the print job and assumes that it'll find it resident on the printer.

Which - back to the main problem - allows you to look over what images you have and don't have by looking at a folder on your hard drive with filenames and date stamps.

Jim
(up 75 from you @ PrintComm in Flint)

Hi Jim, I started with the Virtual drive thing and it worked great for PDF's, but when I tried to send to my printer, no images. This was probably caused because my images were stored on my Local Host on the Vitural Drive after I downloaded Them.

Are you saying that I can have a Virtual Drive on My Printer Rip? or Do I store the Actual Images there? Right now my IR 150 is blowing up because PP is sending the images to the printer via the Document, so currently I am producing PDF files and sending from the PDF.. Thanks for you input.

Dan