Variable Data Printing Technology (I)

The rapid development of the information economy and the wide application of digital technologies have provided the printing industry with a wide range of development space, and it has also made the industry's competition increasingly fierce. How to "satisfy different requirements and conduct comprehensive services" has become the focus of business operators. Digital printing is considered to be a powerful contender for this market with its flexible, fast and high-quality reproduction effects. As the entire market is increasingly diversified and personalized, the use of digital technology to personalize documents and data has become a general trend.

Variable data printing debut

With the promotion of market demand and the rapid development of personalized printing, it has become a trend to transform the mass market into a mass customization market and a mass market segment. Keep an eye out for recent technological developments. We often come across terms like: variable data printing, variable information printing, personalized printing, database printing, one-on-one printing, customizable printing, etc. Maybe these will make you feel Confused, but no matter what, it means that only one kind of document layout is designed in a printing process, but each copy of the document has its own unique personality, ie the text and graphics on each copy page. The content of each part of the image can be different. It can be arbitrarily changed to produce unrestricted, unique and targeted personalized products.

This printing technology greatly increases the value of printed materials. Industry experts believe that variable data printing will be the most important driving force for digital printing. The reason is that variable data printing brings brand-new value-added effects. It has performed well in improving customer feedback and customer service quality, reducing overall costs, reducing sales time, and increasing production efficiency. As shown in Table 1.

Table 1 Value Added Effect of Variable Data Printing
Table 1 Value Added Effect of Variable Data Printing
Effective customer feedback rate of 34%

Average order volume/order value growth rate 25%

Duplicate order rate and order retention rate 48%

Total revenue and profit growth 32%

Reduction in response time by 35%

Variable data printing is a form of on-demand printing. All products printed through this technology are similar but not identical. Such applications are common in life, such as company annual reports, CI design manuals, product promotion leaflets, table cards, transportation permits, direct mail advertisements, etc., including the packaging of some products can be personalized labels. In order to achieve corporate identity promotion and establish a brand image. In daily life, personalized business cards, calendars, desk calendars, greeting cards, wedding albums, etc. are unknowingly entered the lives of ordinary people. All of these have improved people's recognition of variable data printing and laid a good market foundation for them.

technical background

The specific method of adding variable content to printed products: First, first design the desired page in a standard typesetting software such as QuarkXPress or frameMaker, and input the fixed page content. This page is called the template file and is in the template file. You need to reserve a place for variable content, complete the page layout and design, and store the file in EPS or PDF format. The second step is to create a database file for the variable content. The database file should include all the information needed for the variable data printing, requiring the added items to correspond one by one and cannot be misplaced. In the actual printing, the data stream representing the variable information comes from the database file created in the second step, and then uses the software that allows the variable content input on the fixed page to insert the variable data into the reserved location, together with the fixed content. Complete page.

In the design process, designers are often asked such a question: how to form a preliminary concept of variable data pages. The answer is to first create a static page, determine the content on the page that needs to be changed according to different readers, and then determine if the selected data can support the printing goals to be achieved. The key question of this technology is how to design a variable data page and how to determine the variable part of the page without affecting the overall aesthetic effect of the page. It is not easy to understand the type of database technology used to reconcile data and the establishment of enterprise rules between customer-provided information and variable data templates.

When creating a variable data page, there are three key technologies that should be noted:

· Matching of variable data with different pages;

A link to a database report that provides copy information;

· Development of necessary corporate rules.

The realization of variable data printing requires new processes, technologies, concepts, and requires that these technologies can be integrated at one point. This requires a completely new perspective of where a page's variable data is, how complex it is to build a page, and all these connections form the basic requirements for creating variable data pages. Professionals engaged in graphics and information processing must take these factors into account and start with some of the most basic tasks. Can design the customer satisfaction interface.