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heidelberg news 278

to perfection

variable data printing

for beginners tips &
Whether you want to personalize names and addresses for a mail cam- tricks
paign or prices and photos in flyers and brochures, variable data printing
makes it possible. But how exactly does it work? Variable data printing (VDP)
­enables mail campaign, brochures and other ­media to be personalized
during the digital printing process. The layout, together with ­elements such Title  I  First Name  I  Last Name  I  Address  I  City/State/Zip …
as the company logo, illustrations and text blocks, typically remain the
same in all copies and form the master document. This is combined with Title  I  First Name  I  Last Name  I  Address  I  City/State/Zip …
variable data that changes from copy to copy. Variable content such as
names, customer addresses, figures, images and background colors are Title  I  First Name  I  Last Name  I  Address  I  City/State/Zip …
normally prepared and sorted in a database or Excel spreadsheet.
Title  I  First Name  I  Last Name  I  Address  I  City/State/Zip …

Title  I  First Name  I  Last Name  I  Address  I  City/State/Zip …

Title
First Name/Last Name
Address
City/State/Zip

linking placeholders to variable data

All the necessary placeholders are first defined in the static master document.
These then need to be linked to the appropriate variable data. If this data is
­contained in an Excel spreadsheet, for example, the contents of individual col-
umns or rows can be linked for the replacement process. Descriptive labels
such as <first name> or <surname> are then normally used for the columns.

which software programs can be used?

The mail merge function of MS Word, Adobe InDesign with appropriate plug-ins
and special VDP programs can be used to link the master document to variable data.
The main differences lie in the range of functions. InDesign, for example, only
supports text variables, but plug-ins are available for images. VDP software offers the
widest range of functions. It enables additional elements to be defined, such as
colors and fonts to be ­replaced, and processing rules such as automatic insertion of
line breaks after a pre-specified number of characters.
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ripping bottleneck –
format determines
processing time
Intelligent use of optimized output formats significantly
shortens this RIPping time. The static data that always re-
mains the same is only RIPped once and only the variable
content is replaced. How efficient this process is and the
RIPping functions that are supported depend on the output
format of the master document. Manufacturer-neutral formats
such as PPML or PDF/VT are recommended. The latter is
the current VDP standard (ISO 16612-2:2010) and offers
benefits such as fast screening, transparencies, layers and
ICC-based color management.

pdf/vt – compact files

and high print throughput
Many VDP programs can export files in PDF/VT format, which enables separate
processing of the static and variable content. Recurring elements in the master
document are converted and saved once only. To personalize the eight-page
flyer in the example cited below, the RIPping software thus only replaces the
variable data for each data set and combines it with the static content. This
saves time and money, because far less data needs to be processed and a less
powerful RIPping system can be used. PDF/VT only processes eight static pages
and, separately from this, the variable data – rather than 8,000 full pages!

large files slow down

processing in pdf format
InDesign can only output data in PDF format and therefore always saves the
­entire page description in a file. In the VDP process, this means a copy of the
complete master document is generated for each personalized version – even
if the only changes are the name and address on the first page. This results in
huge job files that require a great deal of time and powerful systems for RIPping
and impositioning. An eight-page flyer with 1,000 data sets, for example, produces
an 8,000-page PDF, with a correspondingly long RIPping process.