What if your customer had an app on their Mac or PC that created a special printer on their machine to create PDF files for you? What if this special printer not only created PDFs but preflighted them first and then sent them directly to you? Your customer could open any document in any program and create a PDF to your specifications, using products like Word, Open Office, PowerPoint – you get the picture.
There is a product that accomplishes this. Enfocus Connect ALL 11 (Connect YOU for single user) was released this summer and has already captured the attention of the Print 13 Must See ‘Ems awards. The best part is that it is easy to set up and easy for your customer to use.
The first time your customer launches your custom app they are prompted to install the virtual printer. The icon on the virtual printer can be set up to show your logo as well as the icon for the app. This printer will create Postscript and use Adobe Distiller (built into your app) to create the PDF with your Distiller settings.
It is not just Distiller that is built into the app for you, it also contains full Pitstop preflight that you control when building the app. From there you can decide how to proceed:
You can stop the job at the customer’s desktop and they can read the Pitstop report and fix their file.
You can allow customers to sign off on items like low resolution images.
You can disable the report for the customer and have the report go directly to your prepress department.
You have total control and you can make as many apps as you like for different customers.
So far we have only talked about making a PDF and preflighting it. The app will send the file directly to your FTP site, website, email or even into a Switch workflow. How about job tracking? That’s in there too. You can customize a job ticket to be submitted with the job. Formats are XML, Text and Comma Separated files so you can process the information any way you want.
To summarize, Connect ALL 11 allows you to create apps that add a printer on your customer’s Mac or PC. When they print from any program to this printer it will create postscript, generate a PDF, preflight that PDF and send the PDF to you with a job ticket filled in by your customer.
There are a few other features you have when setting up an app for your customer. The app is customizable; you can add your own background, web page link and messages into the app that the customer will see. Updates can be set up automatically via FTP and can be built in with one click. The app will check to see if a newer one is available so you can make changes without worrying who has which app.
For more information on Enfocus Connect ALL 11 visit www.enfocus.com or contact andrea@tribay.ca for a demonstration. You can download a free 30 day trial from Enfocus. Wait, I didn’t even talk about the Creative Cloud and Creative Suites plugins that are available to go along with your app. You can find these at http://www.enfocus.com/en/products/connect/plug-ins and they will work with Connect ALL.
The App You Must See
