The emergence of new and better technology has brought with it some very interesting development especially in terms of variable data printing. It cannot be denied that variable data printing has been gathering momentum in terms of its applications and this improvement is brought about by the growing familiarity of the market with regards to the concepts as well as the capabilities of the variable data technology.
Variable data printing is famous for quality customized printed documents. However, did you know that variable data printing is not a new concept in printing? It actually started in the year 1980 the time when high-speed laser printers created by Xerox and IBM were used for printing personalized direct mail letters, insurance policies as well as other similar documents.
The printers during those times were fast but have severe limits on fonts and on graphics. The reason may be because these printers were only monochrome machines that have 240 or 300 dots per inch. These machines were also driven using mainframe or Unix-based software whose output was Xerox metacode or IBM AFP data streams. Although in some way the software may be considered efficient and superior but it was it very difficult to manipulate.
The year 1990 is the onset of high-speed color digital presses and in some way was responsible for the decreased in demand for variable printing software. The abrupt shift from variable data printing machines to the high-speed color digital presses was due to the fact that the presses were found to be more suited for the production of personalized marketing materials that require for heavy design component. Aside from that, the variable data software was deemed to be more applicable for programmers than for designers who just couldn’t handle the high-quality color and PostScript text formatting requirements.
To further enhance the advantages of digital presses, manufacturers have developed their very own software that would handle the PostScript text formatting requirement. They also make sure that their high-speed digital color presses have the desired design flexibility as well as the ability to handle large color image files plus they have made the user interface as designer-friendly as possible.
The present times calls for another great shift and this time toward the direction of variable data printing. It seems that vendors of traditional packages are starting to gain interest in the graphic arts market and they are very much aware of the role that variable data printing is going to play. Nevertheless, further development is required especially in coming up with easier user interfaces. But hopes are high especially now that battle for market share intensifies. And users are deemed to benefit immensely out from the development of new variable data software since its upcoming designs promises easy use.
