A statue honouring Arthur Wharton at George’s Park where Hybrid held its huddle
Hybrid Software invited flexo and digital packaging and label printers to St. George’s Park, the FA’s National Football Centre, to its Hybrid Huddle to learn how its software can improve their pre-press set up. Michal Lodej reports.
We often see a huddle used in team sports to gather a team together in a tight circle, to strategise, motivate or celebrate, and that’s what Hybrid did with its customers along with some other industry suppliers. Arden Software, Cerm, Creative Edge, Fujifilm, GMG, Thermoflex and Zünd all joined Hybrid to discuss what new features were available in the world of pre-press and further down the production process.
Paul Bates, Hybrid’s sales manager for the UK and Ireland, said, ‘Every change brings with it opportunities, and this Hybrid Huddle is our way to bring people together and show customers how things can be done differently. If you don’t know what we’ve got how can you take advantage of it?’
He continued, ‘Everything in the Hybrid Packzflow software suite is PDF and HTML based. No third-party software is involved and we offer enterprise licencing so you can use the same system on multiple sites. The most fundamental difference with us is that we want to listen to you, as you will know better than anyone what the pain points are. We will go away and see if we can develop the solution to your problems which means your system will just keep getting better and better.
‘It is an agile platform and the main thing is we haven’t finished, it’s just the start. Life shouldn’t be so complicated, we try to take away the nonsense for you and you can have it now, you do have a choice. This is now the number one choice in packaging pre-press.’
Pascal Wybo, product manager for Hybrid’s Packz Software, gave a demonstration of the software’s capabilities, he said, ‘In Packz we are working with native PDF files so there is no need for converting any files. To make the experience easy we have created work spaces linked to the task where users can edit files and work on the design all in the same programme, with an annotated overview in the same window.’
The software works exactly the same whether it is on a PC or a Mac, allowing printers with any IT set up to use it. All embedded images and text in a file can be extruded with no complications as it is a PDF.
The software helps users by flagging up issues such as fonts not adhering to EU regulations and images designed in RGB, informing the user to take action.
Dot shape and screening can be interpreted in the PDF of every image in the file. ICC profiles can be applied in an open application, or users can link it with a separate colour management programme, and users can isolate colours to view just the areas where the colour will be laid.
Mr Wybo continued, ‘In flexo often we need to search for text of a certain size. Filters can help to identify text of a certain size, again pointing out whether it is compliant with regulations or not.
Customers sometimes use outlined texts which cause a lot of problems with last minute changes. This software can scan the outline, text and match it with the closest font available, with the option to keep the outline or not.’
This particular feature derived from a real customer. The customer went to Hybrid with the problem of outlined texts and the company took just three months to develop the solution to fix it.
The second part of Hybrid’s software offering comes in Cloudflow, which again Mr Wybo demonstrated for the attendees. He said, ‘The different modules which make up Cloudflow are all built using HTML5, this means Cloudflow can run on any laptop or desktop computer, capable for production flow management with the thousands and thousands of files used in print production.
The software is accessible through the Internet and can be run on the cloud so can be accessed anywhere in the world. A single licence can be shared between different locations, provided it is not being used at the same time with cloud flow share. This also allows the different production sites access to the same files.
