New Pageflex Products Add VDP to InDesign CS4

Theresa Stone

Pageflex, a division of Bitstream Inc. and a leading developer of enterprise variable data publishing and web-to-print solutions, announced today an expansion of the company’s collaboration with Adobe Systems Incorporated resulting in two new product offerings to support customers that have sophisticated graphic design needs and large volumes of Adobe InDesign documents. Pageflex Studio ID is a desktop variable data publishing (VDP) plug-in for Adobe InDesign CS4, while the company’s award-winning Pageflex Storefront web-to-print solution adds support for document customization using Adobe InDesign CS4 Server.
Both Pageflex Storefront 7.0 and Pageflex Studio ID will be available in June 2009.
Pageflex Studio ID
Pageflex Studio ID combines the full visual power and graphic creativity of InDesign with the industry-leading variable data capabilities that Pageflex has pioneered over the past twelve years. Pageflex Studio ID enables users to design, setup, and run variable data projects directly in InDesign. No conversion to a Pageflex format is necessary. The plug-in will be available for both Macintosh and Windows platforms.
“I am pleased that by coming to market simultaneously with Windows and Macintosh versions of Pageflex Studio ID, we can continue to support our Windows customer base while giving Mac users access to the power of Pageflex for one-to-one communications,” comments Costas Kitsos, Bitstream Vice President of Engineering. “We are excited to support the strong community of Macintosh users in the graphic arts industry.”
Included in Pageflex Studio ID are additional capabilities that turn Adobe InDesign into a powerful resource for variable data publishing. With Pageflex Studio ID, the InDesign application becomes project central for VDP campaigns, giving users access in one project file to multiple related templates and assets. Users can simply create one set of variables and variable business rules and then apply them to any template in the project. This centralization of a project is a hallmark of Pageflex variable data applications and saves time and cost by eliminating the need to re-create components for each template.
Pageflex Studio ID includes an intuitive point-n-click business rule editor for creating if-then-else rules, and support for Adobe ExtendScript when a project requires more complex rules. In addition, Pageflex Studio ID offers advanced users a robust scripting tool, called Pageflex Actions, to dynamically manipulate every aspect of an InDesign document on-the-fly.
Pageflex Studio ID also provides a migration path for those customers who want to make their VDP projects available in a Web-to-print storefront now or in the future. Using Pageflex Studio ID, users can prepare variable data templates for use in Pageflex Storefront.
Pageflex Storefront 7.0 with Adobe InDesign CS4 Server Integration
Pageflex Storefront, the industry-leading and award-winning web-to-print solution, includes integration with Adobe InDesign CS4 Server so that native InDesign documents can be selected, customized, and ordered through a web browser. Pageflex Storefront has always offered document customization using the Pageflex composition engine, and the addition of support for Adobe InDesign templates expands the choices for users involved in the creation of variable documents.
Adobe InDesign templates are designed and configured in Pageflex Studio ID on a Windows or Macintosh computer, packaged, and uploaded to Pageflex Storefront. There is no conversion to a Pageflex format. The templates retain all of the design and variable richness as when they are used directly in Pageflex Studio ID.