Agfa Graphics has announced that the :Apogee 7 workflow management suite, which was presented at IPEX and features :Apogee Impose, is now shipping to customers. Apogee Impose is an Agfa-developed imposition module that relies on live job information rather than templates to perform imposition. :Apogee 7 also allows print buyers to go beyond the web-to-print screen to create new jobs in the prepress stage with WebApproval. The new version of :Apogee also includes APPE 2.5, Adobe’s latest version of its native PDF renderer. With :Apogee 7, printing companies that have digital inkjet printing capabilities can now manage file distribution to different printers with their own specific application.
:Apogee Impose – brand-new Agfa-developed imposition
:Apogee Impose is a revolutionary rules-based imposition software. Instead of using traditional pre-defined templates, which must be manually edited for each job, :Apogee Impose uses job information, such as page size, product part information (cover, body and insert) and available equipment (prepress, press and bindery) to automatically calculate and propose the most optimal imposition scheme. Because it is intelligent, all job parameters are known and used to determine accurate imposition. For example, it will optimise signatures to put all black and white pages on specific flats. Conditions also determine that content goes to web presses and covers to sheet presses.
:Apogee Impose interprets and executes imposition-based on each individual job, instead of having to fit a job into an existing template, which can save a company significant time and labour.
Among the first installations of :Apogee Impose was Vogt-Schild Druck, a division of AZ Medien, based in Zurich and in Derendingen, Switzerland. The company offers design, layout, production and printing of magazines and periodicals. Vogt-Schild Druck also provides complete publishing services.
“I’m very impressed with :Apogee Impose,” said Pascal Coppola, IT-prepress. “Agfa demonstrates excellent expertise with a brilliant solution as a result. :Apogee Impose is even better than I expected. With :Apogee Impose I am able to create my own job-specific impositions for saddle stitching, perfect binding, barcodes for plate-ID and foldsheet-ID, fold-overs, signature-text, and so much more. What I like a lot is the way :Apogee decides to add the colour bars and crop marks. :Apogee Impose is brilliant! In fact, I keep discovering new, extremely useful features and I’m sure to find more in future versions. Impose is a far better way to do imposition. It saves me so much time. I am eager to take advantage of all of its benefits. ”
Because :Apogee Impose calculates the preferred imposition scheme for every job, the outcome is predictable and automated, eliminating wrong settings.
Manual editing required with template-based imposition can take up to five minutes per template. With rules-based :Apogee Impose operators can use unlimited production rules and work the way they want with standard or custom schemes. Standard imposition generation is completely automatic requiring no manual intervention. Custom impositions may require one to three minutes for the entire imposition layout. The result is significant savings in time and money.
WebApproval
:Apogee’s browser-based WebApproval function allows print buyers to view their jobs, upload and replace pages, and reject or approve for further processing. :Apogee 7.0 extends WebApproval functionality beyond the traditional upload and approve functionality by allowing the prepress department to invite buyers to view and create new jobs in the prepress stage. They can create jobs based on a series of pre-define job plans. Once approved, :Apogee generates the imposition scheme and starts processing the job. This gives printers the ability to develop greater involvement with preferred customers and further automating the prepress process.
:Apogee wide-format printing hub
:Apogee 7 gives printers who operate a variety of wide-format inkjet solutions or use wide format solutions next to their traditional CtP, a central production management hub. :Apogee checks and corrects incoming files and applies colour management before outputting the file to different devices. This avoids unnecessary stand-still of the wide format printers due to errors or incompatibilities of the supplied files. It also re-directs files to idle printers, hence more efficient job management while maintaining colour consistency. :Apogee 7 works with each printer’s RIP and dedicated tools for a specific printing application on the wide format printer. This gives printers automated output control of the complete production environment.
Adobe PDF renderer (APPE 2.5)
:Apogee 7 also includes the latest available Adobe PDF Print Engine (APPE 2.5) giving users the advantage of using the latest workflow engines and guaranteeing compatibility with Adobe’s latest Creative Suite.