Selecting imposition templates based on the number of jobs in a job group

[JavierM-Xerox]

If you submit the business cards as a job group (which you can do using the submission UI, JMF or hot folders by doing Zip for MAX submission) then you do not need the OM license for the above workflow.

If you want FFCore to automatically sort and aggregate the jobs then you need the OM license.

[john heine]

Javier, i have a similar situation where I need to take 12 different business cards and make 1 8.5x11 sheet. Would the workflow be similar to this one or is there an easier way. I do not have output manager.

[JavierM-Xerox]

Thanks

I have a backlog of similar workflows from the private FFCore forum (analyst only) that I need to scrub and copy over to this side.

You can find them all by following the link for the HOWTO label.

As to your questions:

If the Nup value is fixed then you should be able to use variations of this for any document–not just business cards.

The above will always have a gutter between cards per requirements of the finisher.

If you use clustering then the cards will abut to each other and you can have a variation without bleed.

There are other options for dealing with bleed.

You can use clustering and impose using the bleed box. If the bleedbox is bigger than the trimbox then you will get gutters only when you have bleed.

Alternatively, you can route using the minimum bleed distance and automatically select between impositions for document with and without bleed.

If the documents do not have properly defined boxes then there are other things that might help. If that's the case please start a new Topic and post some details. 

[GreggT]

This is quite an extensive workflow for business cards.  Will this work in a variety of files with or without bleeds for the cards?

I have been trying to battle with a workflow that recognizes bleed definition. Thank you.

[JavierM-Xerox]

One quick note - there are multiple ways to do this. This example will leverage the manual page order in imposition as that results in the simplest imposition.

This is the workflow that will automate the imposition as defined above

The first two presets are part of the EasyStarts and are described there.

The jobs in the Job group are then joined into a single file.

The Route preset then routes by the number of pages in the file

The imposition itself is very straight forward: 24up imposition with a larger gutter in the middle

The imposition variations are done using changes in the Manual Page order. The 2 job variant has 12 entries for page 1, increment of 1 and 12 entries for page 3, increment of 1

The rest of the imposition templates follow variations of the same pattern to place different joined PDF pages into the layout.

For the 3 job case, change every 3rd row to page 5

A similar change in page assignment will enable the 4 job layout

The result is a workflow that will automatically select the required imposition template based on the number of jobs that were joined.

This can be extended in a number of directions:

• Enable handling of jobs with different quantities (assuming they are multiples of each other)
• Enable creation of layouts that are either simplex or duplex (based on workflow routing and collection)
• Automatic collecting of jobs for a defined period of time and then automatically selecting the optimal collection of templates for the aggregated jobs (using job group imposition)
• Workflows that first sort jobs based on quantity and gang up only jobs with the same quantities
• etc.

[JavierM-Xerox]

Had a request for imposition that would vary depending on the number of jobs in the job group.

Specifically:

• If the order is just 1 business card, he wants it 24-up.
• If it’s 2 business cards, he wants it in 2 batches of 12-up, on the 12x18 sheet.
• If it’s 3, he wants 3 groups of 8-up.
• 4 orders; (4) 6-up sections per sheet.