Software Changes with the Times ABy Richard Romano utomation. Web portals. Responsive design. The Cloud. There was a time when “software” was synonymous with design and production tools like Adobe InDesign or QuarkXPress, but today’s software focus is on automating as much of the workflow as one can. Enfocus’ Switch (Booth 444) has become an invaluable tool for many companies seeking to automate repetitive tasks. And Ultimate Bindery from Ultimate TechnoGraphics (Booth 541) takes automation where no one has gone before: finishing. Studies have found that 2014 marked a tipping point: for the first time, more people are using mobile devices to access websites than laptop or desktop computers, so companies like Aleyant (Booth 439) are reconfiguring their web-to-print solution builders (like Pressero) to support responsive design, or the dynamic reformatting of a site based on the device accessing it. Responsive design had been a capability for the customer-facing side of a web-to-print portal, but has now been expanded to the administrative side. This means that now print service providers can check on active orders, get information about where jobs are in the workflow, and make changes and corrections to the storefront right from a smartphone. More and more software is now becoming browser-based rather than available as standalone applications, part of the migration to a “cloud-based” or “software as a service” (SaaS) model. This isn’t the case for all software applications, and many customers still prefer their production and administrative/management software to be premises-based, but it’s clear that more and more applications are migrating in a cloud direction. Hand-in-hand with that trend is that of software being sold on a subscription basis. Adobe let that genie out of the bottle when they moved its Creative Suite to the Creative Cloud, and as the market gradually accepted subscription-based software sales, more and more companies have begun following suit. One unique software solution that has taken the industry by storm is CHILI Publisher from CHILI Publish (Booth 441). Launched in 2010, CHILI Publisher is an online document editor that has all the graphic design and production features of an Adobe InDesign, but is simple enough to use that non-professionals can easily create, proof, and make changes to files while still retaining the ability to generate professional, print-quality output. “What CHILI Publish does is it allows you to bring any graphics file online in a browser, Commercial Printing | Digital Printing | Flexible Packaging Folding Carton Packaging | Metal Decorating | Newspaper Plastic Cards | Security Printing | Signage and POP www.kba.com KBA covers it all... Booth 213 GRAPH EXPO 15 attendees should be sure to check out Aleyant’s Pressero web-to-print solution (above) and CHILI Publish’s CHILI Publisher (right). show it to your customer whoever your customer is, and make it editable for a non-professional user,” says CHILI Publish CEO Kevin Goeminne. At GRAPH EXPO 15, CHILI Publish is highlighting three new enhancements: a connector to PageFlex, a gradual migration away from Flash to HTML5, and an output automator that lets users create various output scenarios. “If you need to do something for sign and display,” says Goeminne, “like create a timeline with CHILI Publish documents and create and configure transitions, animated GIFs, or a sequence of files.” CHILI Publisher integrates seamlessly and transparently with a wide range of workflows and production platforms. 28 September 16, 2015 | GRAPH EXPO Official Show Daily | PrintingNews.com
GraphExpo Show Daily September 16, 2015
To see the actual publication please follow the link above