Meadows Publishing Solutions has released a new version of its DesignMerge Pro variable data publishing program to work with Adobe InDesign CS6 on both Macintosh and Windows-based platforms.

This allows the creation of documents for variable data publishing with support for personalised printing, and document automation. The modules work within InDesign CS5, CS5.5 and CS6 and link to databases.

DesignMerge supports the creation of variable text, pictures, articles, and complete InDesign layouts and master pages. All features of Adobe InDesign are available through DesignMerge, allowing for instance variable type on a curve. It can output variable data printing formats including PostScript, PPML, Creo VPS and PDF/VT. Meadows said it is fully compatible with digital presses from Canon, Creo, EFI, Fujifilm, HP, Konica-Minolta, Ricoh and others.

New features include:

* Direct PDF Output: a new PDF Driver module that produces variable output in PDF as well as PDF/VT, the verient intended for variable data output.

* Embedded Variable Link Support. Variable Links can be embedded directly in the data to be merged. This is helpful for encoding ‘verbose’ data formats such as MeCard and vCard formats, or for concatenating data fields such as Zip+4 and other postal codes.

* Enhanced Variable 2D Bar Code Support. The MPS 2D Bar Code Module can now fully support verbose data formats such as the vCard format. The vCard format is used extensively in applications such as business cards where contact information must be fully encoded in QR Code format, allowing the data to be quickly scanned by smart phones and other QR Code reader applications.

* Enhanced Settings for PPML and Creo VPS Print Drivers. This now allows users to review and select the data format, colour, transparency flattener and other settings that the driver will use for the current merge session. The PPML driver has been additionally enhanced to provide separation of image data and ‘pass through’ image support, resulting in faster processing and smaller output files.

* Print Preview Mode: a new type of test merge session that can be run on any DesignMerge job. It can mimic exactly how the documents will be merged and printed.

Contact: www.designmerge.com/designmerge50