Digital Original:
A Look at Recent Trends
in Prepress
Will the printing industry see a return to the page layout wars?
For the past decade, Adobe has captured market share for graphic designers and printing companies
with its Creative Suite over its biggest rival QuarkXPress. Quark is making a push to get back
customers with QuarkXPress 2017 and a new IDML Import feature that can convert InDesign
fi les directly into editable QuarkXPress objects that retain attributes is drawing some interest.
But the biggest buzz isn’t about QuarkXPress features, but page layout pricing models.
Small printing companies continue to complain
about the Adobe subscription model for its soft -
ware products. To save money smaller companies
would forgo buying or upgrading the latest version
of the Adobe soft ware until they had to. Now
printers have a monthly bill from Adobe hitting
their credit card.
Many soft ware companies are going to a subscription
service for soft ware and there are pros
and cons. Subscribers have access to the latest
updates and fi xes, but oft en they are provided
features they don’t need or are forced to update
hardware because of compatibility issues. Adobe
started the subscription service in 2013 and
there are still printers using Adobe’s Creative
Suite 6. Adobe stopped selling the box version of
CS6 in January 2017.
Quark’s pricing for their box version of QuarkXPress
is attractive to small printers. Th e price
for the program is $849 and $149 for a year of
support and upgrades. Th e price drops to $399 if
you are doing a competitive upgrade and moving
from InDesign, Microsoft Publisher, Photoshop,
CorelDraw, or one of the other layout programs.
Th is compares to Adobe’s monthly subscription
of $19.99 a month for InDesign or $49.95 a month
for the complete suite of soft ware (Acrobat, Photoshop,
Illustrator, etc.).
Which Deal is Best?
Which deal is the best for the individual printer
will depend on several factors. Which soft ware
can the printer aff ord? What soft ware is needed
to support customers? Are the other soft ware
programs in the Creative Cloud needed? Which
program is the staff familiar with and are trained
people available to use the soft ware selected?
Bottom line, select the soft ware that gives you
the biggest bang for the bucks, not just because
it is the cheapest.
Making Prepress Work For You
Before you make any change to any soft ware,
make sure you are making money with what
you use now. First, review your selling prices for
prepress and design tasks. Some printers are still
charging the same prices they did a decade ago
and are afraid to raise prices because “customers
might complain.”
Second, make sure invoices get processed.
Some printers boast of high design prices, yet the
customer never gets charged for the work. Make
sure your chart of accounts separates the selling
prices for the prepress department.
Establish someone in charge of getting changes
and additional prepress charges onto the customer’s
invoice. If a customer makes a lot of changes
in the original order, you can charge for the time
you spent making the changes. If the customer
didn’t provide a print-ready fi le, then you can
charge a price for making sure the fi le prints.
Measure your prepress productivity monthly.
Have a sales goal for the department. Are
monthly sales more than the monthly expenses?
Are the sales people and CSRs charging the right
amounts and covering all the costs?
Th e prepress department can either be a
big money maker or a big money loser. It is up
to management to focus on the department’s
costs. Don’t let the prepress department be a
loss leader to get more digital and press work.
Prepress and design play an important role in
the production process and customers should be
expected to pay for it.
By John Giles
Senior Consultant for
CPrint International
John Giles is a senior consultant
for CPrint International
(cprint.com). He helps printers
prosper and understand how
to sell technology services.
Giles is the author of “12
Secrets for Digital Success”
and “The DTP PriceList.”
He can be reached at
954-224-1942 or
john@cprint.com.
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