Collect and imposition of business cards from a MAX file

[florianm]

Hello,

Thank you very much for your answer, it's perfect!

[DavidU54339-XRX · Accepted solution]

I've got a solution -- not the most eligant. It consists of two Workflows. The first (see screensnaps below) duplicates the jobs based on the quantity specified via MAX. The WF uses the Insert node and sets the number of inserts to "$FFQuantity - 1". The "-1" is needed as you already have one copy of the job. The job is imposed using "Cut & Stack".

When the jobs are submitted via MAX the result is one job that is Saved. The associated xpf file in Save will have the number of copies that most likely will not equal "1". You can edit the .xpf and set the copies = "1".

Then submit the job and the .xpf to a Print node only Workflow. Below is an example xpf with the line of interest bolded.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE xpif SYSTEM "xpif-v02080.dtd">
<xpif version="1.0" cpss-version="2.07" xml:lang="en-US">
  <xpif-operation-attributes>
    <document-format syntax="mimeMediaType">application/pdf</document-format>
    <job-name syntax="name" xml:space="preserve">BC1</job-name>
    <job-pages syntax="integer">2</job-pages>
    <requesting-user-name syntax="name" xml:space="preserve">FreeFlow Core</requesting-user-name>
  </xpif-operation-attributes>
  <job-template-attributes>
    <copies syntax="integer">1</copies>
    <imposition-source-orientation syntax="keyword">portrait</imposition-source-orientation>
    <media-col syntax="collection">
      <media-size syntax="collection">
        <x-dimension syntax="integer">27940</x-dimension>
        <y-dimension syntax="integer">43180</y-dimension>
      </media-size>
    </media-col>
    <orientation-requested syntax="enum">3</orientation-requested>
    <sides syntax="keyword">two-sided-long-edge</sides>
  </job-template-attributes>
</xpif>

[florianm]

Hello,

We have a business card printing workflow powered by a MAX hotfolder (deposit of CSV files).

The flow begins with the collect of all files, for processing at the start of each week.

We then have a module to impose business cards.

- In the case where only one file is collected, we can provide for an imposition in repetition. When printing, the quantity sent to the printer corresponds to the desired quantity (recovered in the CSV file) divided by the number of poses of the board.

- In the case where we collect several files, the imposition in repetition no longer works. FreeFlow Core will generate an imposition sheet for each file recovered. Since we group all the files in the same workgroup, it is the quantity of the last file which is used for the global work. All business cards are therefore printed with the quantity of the last file.

How can we keep the quantity of all the files while grouping all the files in one print job?

Thank you,
Florian