Variable "Cover Sheet" on top of 250 Business Cards

[farns]

That's probably a horrible title, but I'm trying to think of a better way to explain it.

 

I print daily runs of customized business cards. They run 21 up on my Indigo press. Basic configuration, a guy orders 250, he's on there one, orders 1000 he's on there 4x, etc. I've been trying for a long time to figure out a solid way to print a "Cover Sheet" on top of each stack of cards. Some that says "Joe Shmo's Order #12345", my shipping label barcode, etc. My template to generate these business cards is built in FP v6 on Windows. I currently impose my files using hotfolders on my PRoduction Pro HP server, but I'm not married to that option.

 

I've thought about two templates - one for my cards, and one for the cover sheets, and just run the same data through them. But I see plenty of opportunity for human error doing that.

 

I'd really love to figure out a great solution for automation that gives me my cover sheet on top, then 250 replicated sheets after that. And I could do that by creating a 251 sheet document for each card, but at 21 cards per press sheet, I think I'd really tax my RIP. I have not tested this though.

 

I've pondered addressing this several different ways, but every solution I come up with, there's a huge drawback to it. I'd love to hear if anybody else is dealing with this. It would really be a huge boost to my system if I could get a working solution in place.

 

Thanks,

 

Farns

[rpaterick]

I would think this would be something for an ON-LINE ordering system to keep track of. Are these daily orders usually by the same COMPANY?

 

How do you get the files to you now?

[farns]

It is an online system, it generates the tagged text for each order that is placed by one of 50 different companies we do the business cards for. We've handled this problem in other ways in the past, I just think a cover sheet would be ideal and more efficient.

 

I have what I need to generate the artwork for that, I just can't figure out a safe and 100% non-screw-up-able way to have the top sheet run 1 copy, and the 2nd sheet run 250 copies, guaranteeing a perfect match across multiple forms of business cards.

[DSweet]

Good Morning Farns,

 

Just trying to get this clear in my head...you process orders for up to 50 "different" companies and you want to "gang print" all the business cards that you get on a daily basis. For the 21 positions cards A, B and C would be from company 1, card D from company 2, cards E and F from company 3 and so on through to 21 positions. Is this right? Do you currently have a way to break down the card orders to exactly fill the 21 positions or do you do this off-line and create the data file?

 

I could see 2 possible scenarios for this and both would involve the repeat data record function that became part of FusionPro in version 6.

 

Method 1 would be to simply create a template to repeat the number of cards "per individual order". Style A: You could do a two record data file with the first record being your header information and print this on the first card out, then "repeat the second record" for the number of cards that you require for your full order. This way the first card contains your order information for bindery and shipping. Style B: You could simply include that information as added fields within a single record and use a full-sized header sheet (actually a slip sheet before the first imposed page) being set up to list that job title and the specific specs that you want. Again the file would be repeated for the number of cards that you need for that individual order.

 

Method 2 would be to create a "multiple-order data file" and include in your data file a field listing the repeat-factor for the number of 1-up cards that you require to fill up your ganged-sheet for final imposition. If you are doing a print of 250 sheets then this number could be an integer division of the full order number by 250 or something to give you the repeat factor you need. i.e. "1000" order qty / "250" print factor yields a repeat factor of "4" for this card, so that specific card is repeated 4 times during composition.

 

For the second method you would just need some way of monitoring the repeat count so it does not go over 21 when the data file is created or do the math off-line and finagle the data file manually.

 

For my money the easiest and least possible to screw up in a work-flow from print to ship would be Method 1, but Method 2 would not require too much extra programming to get it to work either.

 

Hope this helps.

Good Luck

.

[farns]

I am revisiting this thread 6 months later I'm tackling this project again. I'm really really close!

 

I found this thread:

http://forums.printable.com/showthread.php?t=2051

 

and used Dan Korn's code to get me really really close.

 

Right now, the project has evolved a little bit. The idea here is:

- Cover Sheet (with shipping barcode, thumnail of the project, etc...) I have this working perfect

- Then 200 copies of the product itself. May be a biz card, may be a flyer, whatever.

- Then there's a "coupon" customized based on the data, which I also have worked out.

- Lastly, there's 50 more copies of the product.

 

I have it really close, but the logic in Dan's code doesn't fully apply to me. I won't ever have blank records. It appears that this is set to give a cover sheet on each of the different items (notecard, postcard, etc...) I do not want that. I've tweaked the code a little bit and it works, although it "processes" the cover sheet each time it switches from product, to coupon, to product2 (which is the only way I could get a repeat of that page to work).

 

So here's my code as I have it now, I'm wondering what I can do to stream line it a little bit, just get rid of the stuff I don't need so it's more efficient. Any thoughts?

 

###

 

var PageCover = 1;

var PageProduct = 200;

var PageCoupon = 1;

var PageProduct2 = 50;

 

var total = PageCover + PageProduct + PageCoupon + PageProduct2;

 

FusionPro.Composition.repeatRecordCount = total;

 

var thisRepeat = FusionPro.Composition.repeatRecordNumber;

 

switch (thisRepeat)

{

case 1:

case PageProduct + 1:

case PageProduct + PageCoupon + 1:

case PageProduct + PageCoupon + PageProduct2 + 1:

Print(thisRepeat + ": CoverSheet");

FusionPro.Composition.SetBodyPageUsage ("CoverSheetFront",false);

FusionPro.Composition.SetBodyPageUsage ("CoverSheetBack",false);

break;

 

default:

FusionPro.Composition.SetBodyPageUsage ("CoverSheetFront",false);

FusionPro.Composition.SetBodyPageUsage ("CoverSheetBack",false);

}

 

if (PageCover && thisRepeat <= PageCover)

{

Print(thisRepeat + ": Product");

FusionPro.Composition.SetBodyPageUsage ("CoverSheetFront",true);

FusionPro.Composition.SetBodyPageUsage ("CoverSheetBack",true);

}

 

else if (PageProduct && thisRepeat <= PageCover + PageProduct)

{

Print(thisRepeat + ": Product");

FusionPro.Composition.SetBodyPageUsage ("ProductFront",true);

FusionPro.Composition.SetBodyPageUsage ("ProductBack",true);

}

 

else if (PageCoupon && thisRepeat <= PageCover + PageProduct + PageCoupon)

{

Print(thisRepeat + ": Coupon");

FusionPro.Composition.SetBodyPageUsage ("CouponFront",true);

FusionPro.Composition.SetBodyPageUsage ("CouponBack",true);

}

 

else

{

Print(thisRepeat + ": Product2");

FusionPro.Composition.SetBodyPageUsage ("ProductFront",true);

FusionPro.Composition.SetBodyPageUsage ("ProductBack",true);

}