Océ South Africa promotes using its PReS solution, a scalable composition and production software tool, for cutting edge Variable Data Printing (VDP).
Dubbed one of the most stable, affordable, powerful and flexible document composition languages in the world, PReS is used for designing and publishing personalised documents for both transactional and direct marketing applications such as dynamic billing statements, transactional and transpromotional documents, corporate reports, direct mail, customised insurance policies, one-to-one marketing letters, and so on.
PReS can be used on all Océ devices as it is highly affordable. As a result, all Océ South Africa customers can fully benefit from diverse VDP options with streamlined workflow and integrated finishing options. The efficiency is reinforced by the Océ PRISMAproduction platform, which has recently been upgraded from version four to version five.
What makes this environment unique among leading VDP offerings is that it is based on a language that was designed from the outset to describe the production printing and process automation tasks that are essential to successful VDP production facilities.
Hennie Kruger, digital document solutions (DDS) product and marketing manager for Océ South Africa said, ‘PReS-generated documents can include variable text, pictures, graphics, barcodes and merge data. Using conditional logic, dynamic documents are created where the entire layout varies with the input, producing documents designed for each individual recipient, rather than something that is ‘one-size-fits-all’. PReS can then format the document for printing and for electronic distribution. This enables your documents to be published as printed pages and/or as e-mails, web pages, PDF documents, SMS messages, XML files and faxes. And full colour can be used to maximise response rates.’
PReS supports all the modern production printing page description languages (PDLs) and includes productivity-focused graphical user interface (GUI) tools, such as PReS Designer, to enable the quick creation of less complicated documents. Additional modules enable PReS to use PDF, EPS and PostScript images as PReS graphic formats, similar to native formats, such as BMP, TIF and JPG or data-driven variable graphic images. The barcode toolkit also allows the parameter driven generation of a wide range of 1D and 2D barcodes.
M-PRes Production (the ‘M’ in M-PReS stands for ‘multi-platform’) is an enterprise formatting engine that allows PDC files (compiled job files created by PReS) to be run on both Windows and high-end Unix servers. Not only that, but as a single, intuitive print control, M-PReS Production can produce any supported output format from the PDC using a range of powerful data streaming options.
‘This means that jobs developed for one data stream can be converted to another without any changes being required in the script. All data stream output is based on the same internal format meaning greater consistency across jobs,’ said Kruger. M-PReS Production provides full control over the generation of spool files for printing and archiving with its powerful debugging and preview options.
‘PReS and M-PRes combine ease of use with performance and reliability. Océ South Africa customers will benefit greatly from this scalable solution. Partnered with the Océ PRISMAproduction platform our clients will see shorter implementation cycles and greater levels of process and print automation, while being increasingly responsive to client’s needs. With single or continuous printing options, overseen by extensive debugging facilities and previewing while you print, our clients can expect to see increased efficiency and productivity,’ Kruger concluded.
