Software - Web-to-print

David Steinhardt has built a 17-year career on being what he terms a professional outsider—having worked for four industry associations. Today, Steinhardt is vice president of industry relations at PrintNation.com. He's now an Internet insider. BY MARIE RANOIA ALONSO David Steinhardt was an outsider—if you consider being knee-deep in association work and issues the definition of outside the actual nuts-and-bolts of the printing industry. Interesting. What if the definition of inside the commercial printing industry also meant being an insider at an emerging Internet company, serving the equipment, production and business needs of the commercial printing industry? This is Steinhardt today. Certainly,

Looking for a way to develop a larger client base, communicate better with your clients and cut the cost of your consumables? Dotcom companies may be the answer for which you've been searching. BY CAROLINE MILLER The dotcom companies—they're everywhere. The sheer number of print-oriented e-commerce sites can be a confusing and, frankly, a maddening experience when you are trying to figure out how the emerging dotcom world will benefit you. Never fear: We're here to help. In the second part of our on-going series on e-commerce companies for the printing industry, Printing Impressions takes a look at three age-old problems faced by three

Job tickets—which have been around since Gutenberg, if only in an elementary form—have evolved from handwritten envelopes to computerized, customized, global documents. In the new millennium, that evolution continues as job tickets are transformed from mere digital versions of their paper-based predecessors to virtual windows in the production process. BY CHERYL A. ADAMS "Our crystal ball indicates that, not only will print buying on the Internet become widespread, but also, in many cases, the management systems that the printer uses [such as those for electronic job ticketing applications] will be run totally over the Internet, as well," says Carol Andersen, president of Micro

Internet companies are exploding onto the commercial printing scene, which means new ways for printers to purchase products, communicate with customers and improve efficiency. BY CAROLINE MILLER (Editor's Note: This is the first in a continuing series that profiles real-life examples of printers and their usage of various e-commerce services.) You would have to be living in a cave not to have noticed the explosion of Internet companies springing up to provide every kind of imaginable service. Actually, living in a cave is no longer an excuse—even caves seem to come equipped with Web browsers these days. So it's no surprise that the

First came Noosh, Collabria, Impresse, Printmarket and 58k—all Internet dotcoms seeking to interpose their facilities between print buyers and printers— brokers or auction floors made in the image of the New York Stock Exchange. Now, here comes another dotcom: printCafe, which has merged Logic Associates, Hagen, Prograph, AHP Systems, Programmed Solutions, parts of Creo and perhaps others by the time this writing is on your desk. printCafe seeks to become a super-broker by guiding and supporting both buyers and printers in the administration of their businesses—and collecting a commission! E-commerce mania is sweeping our industry—e-commerce of the B2B (business-to-business) variety rather than

New technologies and applications are emerging for remote proofing. Topping the latest trends are new file transfer technologies for rendering proofs remotely, new software solutions for annotating conceptual proofs and interactive conferencing via the Internet—turning remote proofing into the ultimate, simultaneous satellite collaboration. BY MARIE RANOIA ALONSO The motives for exploring and adopting remote proofing are the same this year as they were last year and the year before: Save production time, while at the same time develop a closer, more effective working relationship between printer and print buyer by leveraging remote proofing as a value-added service. What is different this year? So

While this cutting-edge technology offers the promise of "speed without compromise," some reluctant customers (who are uncomfortable with the electronic concept) fear that the digital proofing promise is simply too good to be true. How, then, do commercial printers convince them otherwise? BY CHERYL A. ADAMS "Have you looked at a National Geographic that was printed in 1980? Looks great doesn't it, just like today's issue? Only the 2000 issue was produced in a fraction of the time—without compromise in quality and from a source of information that is vast," says John Bassett, director of sales and marketing at Scholin Brothers Printing in

Lieber Vater! In many ways, CIP3 can give thanks to the DRUPA exhibition in Germany. DRUPA 1995 was the event that really brought attention to the CIP3 initiative. DRUPA 2000 will see several conceptual aspects of the initiative realized. BY MARIE RANOIA ALONSO In late 1993, Heidelberger Druckmaschinen initiated discussions in Germany with the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics. The two organizations, later joined by bindery innovator Polar-Mohr, formed the foundation for the CIP3 cooperative—a study group known as CIP3, the International Cooperation for Integration of Prepress, Press and Postpress. By DRUPA 1995, the CIP3 movement took official form. Its objective: Facilitate data exchange

BY ALLISON ECKEL The Internet is the new favorite pastime of business, and for good reason. From yard sales to stock sales, modern commerce is evolving and everyone involved is re-examining their current business models with an eye for the realization of the mantra Better, Faster, Cheaper. Commercial printers are rethinking the way they interact with print buyers through e-procurement solutions from such companies as Collabria, Impresse and Noosh. It was only a matter of time before these commercial printers turned to apply these new relationship models to their vendors—the companies in the equipment and consumables distribution channel of the graphic arts industry. As

If you've been following the latest developments in the world of electronic publishing, you've probably come across the abbreviation "XML" (short for eXtended Markup Language). If you've seen it, you're probably confused about it. Most people are—it's very complicated, and there's a lot of imprecise and overly technical information out there. If you haven't heard of XML before, well, I guess you just did. Let's take a look at what XML is, and why it might matter to printers and publishers. Style SheetsDo you know style sheets? We've had them for years now in our desktop applications, from Microsoft Word to PageMaker to QuarkXPress. Style