Regular crop marks with offset in Griffin Auto?

[magnussandstrom]

Is there a way to apply 'ordinary crop marks' on the imposed art work in addition to camera marks in Griffin Auto?

Every now and then there is a need to manually cut a job or use a guillotine instead of in the cutting table. The marks that can be added in Griffin today called 'Corner marks' doesn't work for us cause there is no offset option.

Any suggestions?

[magnussandstrom]

No Griffin users in here?

[rhd_ole]

I'm not sure how different Griffin is compared to Phoenix, but in Phoenix you can add basically unlimited number of marks but they are tied to the press/cutter.

On a different note, how do you like Griffin? We thought about moving down to that due to cost of Phoenix but I have no experience with it.

[magnussandstrom]

I'm not sure how different Griffin is compared to Phoenix, but in Phoenix you can add basically unlimited number of marks but they are tied to the press/cutter.

You can't define presses or cutters in Griffin (other then using your own variables/names).

On a different note, how do you like Griffin? We thought about moving down to that due to cost of Phoenix but I have no experience with it.

I would say I'm about 75% happy with Griffin Auto. It's easy to get started and the Switch app is good. But I'm missing a few key features:

There is no way to rotate all pages in a job the same way while still utilizing material usage. (You can only choose auto or a specific rotation).

There's seems to be no simple way to add regular crop marks.

There is no option to output a layout only in the dimensions of the used material. Lets say I output one 700x1000 page on a 2000x2000 substrate. The outputted size will always be 2000x2000. This is also the case for roll materials on the horizontal length.

There is no native support to do nesting for a roll cutter (Fotoba or similar). I had to built a really complicated flow as a work-a-round.

There is no option to limit the no of ups in X or Y, this can be very useful for some applications.

I would advise you to install the Griffin switch app and have a look (you don't need a licens for that), all the possible variables is present in the app and you can get a pretty good idea of what Griffin can do.

[rhd_ole]

Thanks for the info Mag.

After readying that it sounds like we mad the correct choice to use Phoenix over Griffin. This Imposition AI I feel is by far the best in the market.

All those issues you mentioned I do not have in Phoenix or using their Switch App, that layout issue of 5 layouts vs just 1 with a run of 5 would be very annoying, and my operators would hate me.

I also use their API from submit points in switch to run all our estimating. The user can add and remove substrates, select plans, and report back based on cost, layouts, run length etc. We do a lot of imposition of our retail customers via spreadsheet which is completely automatic upon proof approval and sending the print files to the appropriate printer and the cut files to either roll cutter or Zund and outputting the reports.

Just for fun, I will check out Griffin Switch App.

[magnussandstrom]

that layout issue of 5 layouts vs just 1 with a run of 5 would be very annoying, and my operators would hate me.

I should revise my statment regarding this. There IS an option to do this (Allow multiple layout copies) but it does not always behave as we would like.

At the moment I'm struggling with an 11 page wallpaper job, where I can't for my life get page 1,2 on the same imposed layout..

I imagine Phoenix is really powerful, but it's a bit pricy for us atm.

[rhd_ole]

that layout issue of 5 layouts vs just 1 with a run of 5 would be very annoying, and my operators would hate me.

At the moment I'm struggling with an 11 page wallpaper job, where I can't for my life get page 1,2 on the same imposed layout..

We had the same issues at first, in Griffin do you have plan options where you can do the layouts sequential, vs standard like we do in Phoenix? That solved our issues with order. We only tile jobs that run on XMR (magnet receptive media) via Phoenix, but it's part of the retail workflow where it's driven from a spreadsheet and has the info in on how to tile it, all wallpaper and other facility branding we do at the rip since it's much cleaner, easy to setup overlap, automatic 180° flip for every other panel and tile labeling, plus as a bonus it outputs an install guide along with it we pass to the installers.

I will say I think I love the spreadsheet workflow the best, it really allows better control for us on the output order and how things are ganged on a sheet, we use that order to facilitate both finishing, and packout for shipping.

[magnussandstrom]

We don't do any imposing or nesting at the rip since we want to optimize printing hours. Often one guy handles multiple machines.

Many of our LFP jobs is automatically imposed through different workflows with Griffin or Automation Engine (often web2print). But for our manual jobs I just built a new Submit Point (using Griffin) for our CSR's and Prepress that comes very handy.

ps. Found the solution for the page order issue, there is a parameter called Strategy and if I selected Guillotine the pages are placed in order.

[rhd_ole]

Nice.. I figured there would be a way to do it.

About 85-90% of our jobs are automatically setup, profile/quality, qty etc, via either API, or build-in workflow within the RIP, including the tiling jobs. The files are just at each of the printers ready for the operator. We do not let our operators nest anything really, some cut only jobs on our visual cutter but that's about it.

(I requested a demo license for Griffin, I should have it early next week so I'm going to see if I can get it work with what we do since there is such a price difference, so thanks for the info!!)

[magnussandstrom]

I requested a demo license for Griffin, I should have it early next week so I'm going to see if I can get it work with what we do since there is such a price difference, so thanks for the info!!

Nice, keep me updated of your findings!

[plutinolabs]

I might have a bit of a hack to get crop marks onto a layout (I can't test it on Griffin, but it works In Phoenix and they both have the required options). It basically involves playing around with the bleed and spacing options on the artwork.

• You need to setup your PDF with the required bleed and crop marks prior to importing them into Griffin. eg lets say your artwork has 5mm bleed, with a 5mm crop mark from the bleed. So the spacing from the TrimBox to the other edge of the crop mark would be 10mm

• Import the PDF into Griffin and adjust the bleed to the size including the crop mark area. This would be 10mm in my example.

• Change the artwork spacing back to the bleed width, 5mm in my example. I believe the spacing type would need to be Offset (can't test this as it's slightly different in Phoenix)

• Then create a nest with no additional marks (unless you need them)

Hopefully this should give you the required output with the cropmarks from the PDF exposed on the outer edge of the nest.

Unfortunately, this method does require making sure you have your PDFs have been formatted/cleaned up before you place them in Griffin - but shouldn't be too much of an issue if you run it through any automation you have

[magnussandstrom]

I might have a bit of a hack to get crop marks onto a layout (I can't test it on Griffin, but it works In Phoenix and they both have the required options). It basically involves playing around with the bleed and spacing options on the artwork.

• You need to setup your PDF with the required bleed and crop marks prior to importing them into Griffin. eg lets say your artwork has 5mm bleed, with a 5mm crop mark from the bleed. So the spacing from the TrimBox to the other edge of the crop mark would be 10mm

• Import the PDF into Griffin and adjust the bleed to the size including the crop mark area. This would be 10mm in my example.

• Change the artwork spacing back to the bleed width, 5mm in my example. I believe the spacing type would need to be Offset (can't test this as it's slightly different in Phoenix)

• Then create a nest with no additional marks (unless you need them)

Hopefully this should give you the required output with the cropmarks from the PDF exposed on the outer edge of the nest.

Unfortunately, this method does require making sure you have your PDFs have been formatted/cleaned up before you place them in Griffin - but shouldn't be too much of an issue if you run it through any automation you have

Thanks Pluto, I've actually built your suggested work-a-round in my flow already. But I'm surprized that this feature doesn't already exists in the app..