Solimar Blog

GUEST AUTHOR: Pat McGrew. The Tagged Image File Format, TIFF, was once the standard for archiving essential documents but now PDF provides the solution for ensuring searchability, security and accessibility.

Our journey as a company started 30 years ago today—on the 22nd of March in 1991. With a mission to provide printing capabilities from computers and mainframes to state-of-the-art digital printing engines, our software had an immediate need and impact.

The print production and digital delivery industries continue to feel the winds of change in 2021. For those running printing environments the challenges of managing print production continue.

As experts in PDF, we believe there are significant cost savings to be unlocked based on how you handle PDFs; savings that have yet to be achieved by many Print Service Providers (PSPs) in their printing environments and archives.

We know print and digital production floors are a bit more complicated than ordering DoorDash, Grubhub or an Uber; that doesn’t mean you should have to lose visibility when you step out of the building or back into your office.

By this time in August, we have become accustomed to “live” or in-person events being canceled in lieu of virtual events leveraging online video conferencing technology. Yes, we have all gone virtual.

No matter why you are archiving your PDFs, it is important to make sure that your processes are efficient and as automated as possible. This is where we would like to introduce you to our recently announced Solimar Systems innovation: ReadyPDF Prepress Server.

We have all said it: “Not all PDFs are created equal.” The challenge today is how do you find the right processes to optimize, correct and, in some cases, redact PDF files so that they can either be printed or delivered to an electronic channel?

The good news is that “font” doesn’t have to be akin to other four-letter words. In fact, our team here at Solimar Systems has engineered a new solution that will take away many, if not all, of your font woes.

Those that have been around the printing industry know that PDF has really changed the industry. In fact, you might not even remember what it stands for—many consumers just know they get or make PDFs so that they are easier to send and harder to modify.

This isn’t the first time you have likely heard of Augmented Reality (AR). But new technology opportunities are emerging in the AR landscape that will greatly help people and how they gain access to information.

Now is the time for printing and mailing operations to get lean by finding all those processes that haven’t had the chance or time to streamline.

Over the years, changing technology, new innovations and a competitive market has impacted how you create and produce communications. It has given rise to many different file formats, especially in the high-volume print space.

With many urban centers asking or ordering people to self-isolate in their residences, it is a good reminder of the importance of critical communications: paper, print, and mail.

As complex as the print and digital printing space is, there is one thing that is simple…it all takes software to make the printer produce output.

The 2020 USPS Postal Promotions program is in full swing. Closely following the schedule from 2019, the 2020 program is set to give leading print and mailers some healthy savings on their mailed materials.

As providers of print solutions, specifically around the processes it takes to bring a job in to print, manage that job, produce it and prove delivery, helping customers go from a current to a desired state is what we eat, breath and sleep

If you print using PDF, especially for variable data and higher volume applications running to a cutsheet or inkjet press, then you have likely found that not all PDFs are created equal.

Knowing where each individual piece is in the production and delivery process is important because of the legal requirements, contracted service level agreements and maintaining your customer’s satisfaction.

One of the pain points we hear a lot and see a lot out in the print and digital communications production and delivery market centers around visibility.

Here we sit coming into the final moments of 2019; our goals and objectives focused on wrapping up the year and launching into 2020.

Solimar caught up with Manish Haria, CISO & CIO of Johnson & Quin to ask him about his leadership in the transition to inkjet and the impact of this technology on their business.

Our latest innovation for our PDF-centric workflow software platform, Chemistry™, allows clients to solve PDF problems with seamless integration.

As you continue to step back from the process and take it in, start to think about how software like that at Solimar could help the daily “struggle”.

On May 15th, 2019, the United States Postal Service (USPS) opened the gates for organizations to register for their 2019 Personalized Color Transpromo Promotion.

This August marked another BCC Software Information Exchange; a conference focused on their software users, the mailing market and connection to solutions that will add value.

As some of you may have heard, I am starting a new adventure into retirement and as I work less and see the world more, I am excited to still be a part of the team as the Relationship Consultant (RC) for Solimar.

It struck us recently that people may still not have a great understanding of why we talk about print and digital file production and delivery—something we often refer to as workflow.

Here are some thoughts from within the four walls of Solimar on some strategies to leverage the summer prior to some pretty impactful print and digital delivery events in the fall.

The first week of May 2019 has marked putting another Solimar User Conference and Customer Advisory Council (CAC) meeting in the books.

Join Jonathan for this SOLicast recording as he describes the viewpoint our team here at Solimar takes with even the most straightforward transform.

Workflow is what we want to talk to all of our clients about. With the Solimar Systems Chemistry Platform for print and digital communications, we can positively impact your workflow.

What are you doing at the end of April? We hope you will say coming to see the Solimar team, our partners and industry experts at the Solimar User Conference 2019 in beautiful San Diego.

NCP Solutions, an OSG Company, recently shared how they used SOLsearcher Enterprise (SSE) and our HSM features to solve one of their customer complaints and do it in record time.

Our ultimate goal is to use the information of reviewing our processes to produce print and digital communications and then leverage it for differentiated competitive advantage.

Solimar is proud to be presenting innovations in PDF, workflow and inkjet printing along with our partners Xerox and SCREEN. Located in the main supplier hall, Xerox and SCREEN will be showing their latest innovations in digital printing for a variety of different markets.

Xerox and Solimar will be showing the latest advancements in triggered direct mail, which will showcase for attendees the next level in customer engagement.

SCREEN and Solimar will be presenting innovative inkjet and workflow technology in the SCREEN stand during the show.

The USPS is trying to promote the use of mail by offering discounts for utilizing different types of technology. There are two programs where Solimar solutions can be directly used to achieve a 2% postal savings. These two programs include the 2019 USPS Emerging & Advance Technology and Personalized Color Transpromo promotions.

Chicago in the fall generally means PRINT for the Print industry at McCormick’s South Hall It also makes it a perfect time to get our Solimar Systems Customer Advisory Council (CAC) together for an update on Solimar Research and Development (R&D), insights from their fellow members and market information from leading experts.

Join Jonathan Malone-McGrew, Director of Communications and Engagement at Solimar, for our latest SOLicast recording that discusses the relevance of post-composition document transformation and enhancement.

Fourth Quarter is really a time to reflect on how the year has gone and what we still want to accomplish before year end. It is also at this time that we look at the industry events we have attended, especially since they start to wind down moving into the holiday season.

As our Chief Relationship Officer, or CRO, I spend a great deal of time speaking with our clients, partners and customers; and every time I hang up the phone or leave a meeting I realize how important it is to the people in those conversations to see ways to reduce challenges, improve the way they do things and simply have less stress.

We have developed a number of learning paths, or course work, inside of Solimar University Online (SUO) for our clients and partners to access for educational and training material.

Join our Director of Communications and Engagement, Jonathan Malone-McGrew as he discusses client/customer benefits—real world scenarios that yield significant returns when utilizing Solimar solutions.

Many times we find our clients are already planning on attending user conferences and trade shows, which makes for a more cost-effective way of sorting out future solutions than traveling one-off and is more engaging than just an online meeting.

Calling myself a relationship expert might get me in hot water with those that are near and dear; however, I do believe strongly in the power of relationships and the need to cultivate them. These professional relationships are truly integrated into the foundation of how we work at Solimar Systems.

We are just too connected today—and appified—to let this situation stand. Here are three good reasons why you need oversight in your communications workflow today

Watch our video with Barry Crawford, Chief Technology Officer at MassPrinting, on the benefits they have seen from their Solimar Rubika and SOLfusion solutions.

Solimar University Online (SUO), is our on-demand learning platform for Solimar Systems content and more. As a registered user, you can gain access to many learning paths on Solimar solutions, the products that make up those solutions and updates to features and functions as they become available.

Our Solimar User Conference is an event we look forward to because it embodies the values that Solimar Systems has been built on for the last 27 years—strong relationships. Here is a look back at the event and the key takeaways.

For our team here at Solimar we have been attending global partner events, trade shows, educational conferences and member organization events.

The Solimar User Conference came out of a desire to make sure we were communicating with our users and their decision makers. And it has proven to be a valuable experience for those who attend every year.

Join our Director of Communications and Engagement, Jonathan Malone-McGrew, for this latest SOLicast recording. This episode topic centers around industry awards and the recognition Solimar Systems has received during the first half of 2018.

Our User Conference is scheduled this year to run the 8th through the 10th of May in beautiful San Diego. And this year we have switched it up to make sure the experience is not only valuable, but unique.

We share the 10 Things You Should Be Doing for Your Workflow from one of the foremost leading experts in print and digital workflows, Pat McGrew from KeyPoint Intelligence, from a recent trade show keynote.

With the SOLitrack Batching feature it is possible to tackle persisting complications in the print and digital communications production process.

Over the last several years, there has been a fair bit of change in the print and digital communications industry. In this ever-changing landscape, it is easy to take stability, longevity and continual support for granted.

At Solimar, we believe strongly in being hands on with our current and potential clients…and partners. In this New Year, we believe the best way to start is with our Client Assessment Process—a few step process that in the end provides a lot of value to your organization.

So how do you protect your customers, your brand and your team? Workflow and Document Transformation software, an area of software that Solimar Systems has been specializing in for over 25 years.

As technology continues to advance and markets become more global—some might even say cosmopolitan—we get asked a lot by our clients and partners where we go to share our knowledge.

As we look back, we see that print and digital communications, pieces that go out to customers and users regularly, has had an increased interest in understanding and considering Workflow.

Printing is almost more of an art than a science; there is a finesse to managing a production print floor. And with the varieties of print, every Print Service Provider (PSP), In-Plant and Commercial printer shop is a little different.

On the go, but want to learn more about the new Solimar Systems University Online (SUO)? Join Jonathan Malone-McGrew as he describe the vision, the value to clients and how to get started today.

At Solimar Systems, we believe that people should find valuable information on more than one channel, just like our workflow and customer communications management platform gives our clients the ability to provide physical print and digital communications to their customers.

Our expectations of achieving visibility, as well as, operational oversight for production environments has been elevated in the last few years by the mobile device access we have to banking, directions, shopping and more.

In the print and mail industry we talk a lot about saving money through better efficiencies and postal optimization. Truth be told, our industry has been talking about saving money in print and mail for as long as high volumes of communications and direct mailings have been sent out to consumers.

PRINT 17 has come and gone; and we in the industry are consuming first takes, top-tens and thoughts from our fellow partners, colleagues and vendors.With all the customer conversations we had, what was the pattern that is driving our current and potential clients and their customers for the coming year?

At PRINT 17 in Chicago this year, our Solimar Systems’ experts will demonstrate a number of exciting innovations to help organizations empower critical communications.

At Solimar Systems, building strong and positive relationships with our clients has been a core part of our company value systems since the very beginning in 1991.

Whether you are in Marketing, Operations or the Sales, having new and returning customers buy from your business is important. It is one of the truths that spans all types of businesses.

On the go, but want to learn more about the Solimar Systems’ Client Assessment process? Join Jonathan Malone-McGrew and Dan Adler as they describe the process, the value to clients and how to get started today.

Reprints, printed customer communications that have to be reprinted often due to damage during the production process, are still in many places a manual task.

Sometimes it is hard to believe we haven’t already solved the efficiency and optimization challenges to create the best customer communications workflows.

This year there are 5 reasons you can’t miss coming by our Solimar Systems booth (#2458)…plus as a BONUS we have a presence in two other booths at PRINT 17

The next major revolution for the customer experience; that is a tall order, but we believe Augmented Reality will truly change the way our clients deliver and customers receive print and digital communications.

Selecting a print language for your workflow might not actually be a choice you made. With the history of print for customer communications there is a history of why many organizations utilize specific print languages in their production floor operations.

How many times have you had someone deliver to you what they have called a “Print Ready File”? Now how many times has that file actually been ready to print?

Post-composition takes risk out of urgent changes, composition that is misaligned with a workflow and lets communications be enhanced with innovative ideas at the speed of today’s communications.

At Solimar Systems, we are committed to the highest levels of customer service and support, as well as, the best product and modular solutions experience available on the market today.

Why is the Solimar User Conference different? First, we have two tracks; an Executive and Technical track. In the Executive track, you will learn how workflow affects your business and the customer experience.

Solimar has an exciting opportunity for our clients to once again join and partner with our team of experts in San Diego on May 16-18, for three days of learning, networking and a little fun.

What happens in Orlando, stays in Orlando. Well, for some things we're not going explore here this might be true. For other, we can only hope it's not true: All the excellent knowledge that was shared during Xploration 17! At least we would like to share some of it with you.

Can you talk about the future of print without talking about Augmented Reality? How do you manage the post-composition workflow? Is your PDF print-ready? At Gulf Print and Pack we explored these and many other questions with the crowd of experts flocking to Dubai.

Gulf Print & Pack 2017 is due to be held at the Dubai World Trade Centre in Dubai UAE from 26th-29th March 2017. we will be exhibiting with our partner Xerox at booth H15.

We are a proud Silver Sponsor of the industry leading event. With over 60 educational sessions from industry analysts, end users, and vendors, Xploration is one of the most important conferences and exhibitions of our industry.

Slightly off London's buzz, we found ourselves in Coventry at the Ricoh Arena for the first PrintWeekLive! Conference and Exhibition, March 8 and 9, 2017.

Leading composition programs have added output processing capabilities, eliminating the need for post-processing of their output. This presentation will look at the role of post-composition in modern Customer Communications Management workflows to see where they fit, and why there is still a need for these today.

PrintWeekLive! held by the UK printing industry title PrintWeek is aimed at printing professionals in all sectors; printers, buyers, and vendors. The event will have approximately 50 exhibitors from the digital print and finishing industry.

At the 2017 Conference, we'll be talking about our award-winning solutions, automating workflow processes and managing enterprise document delivery with their Accessibility Engine. Dan Beery, our Vice President, Product & Strategy Development, will be delivering a presentation “Converting legacy consumer statements to Accessible PDF”

More than 6000 guests from around the globe attended this year's Hunkeler Innovationdays, in our eyes an outstanding industry get together full of innovation and inspiration. As for us, we would like to thank the Hunkeler team for all their hard work.

We've been asked why Screen and Solimar Systems are joining forces. Screen has an excellent workflow management tool, which does what it says on the box, reliably, adding to the success for Screen's customers

Personalized Augmented Reality (AR) feels a bit like magic. How can the lady voice in the video pick up names and individual data point? We heard questions like this many times during our presentations yesterday.

During the Hunkeler Innovationdays, we'll be demonstrating the Solimar Systems Augmented Reality (AR) solution live at the Xerox booth - stop by to meet powerful documents with personalized cheeky monkeys, roaring lions, and impressive elephants!

Yesterday was a very busy day. Which, of course, was great for meeting a lot of new people but more importantly, to join forces and introduce the best possible solutions to Screen's customers and prospects to make their printing life easier, more productive and thus successful, and at the end of the day, also financially more rewarding.

Every small-talk attempt quickly turns into a pleasant shoptalk, and before you know it, you got an update on nozzle cleaning, polymer technology, de-inking invention, improved UX design for print queue management, modular built of drying, cutting, sorting units and much more.

As if a trip to Europe, Switzerland, Lucerne, to attend the Hunkeler Innovationdays 2017 isn't exciting enough, we are so grateful and happy to follow Screen's invitation and support them with some of our latest workflow solutions in their booth.

Our AR (Augmented Reality) reality journey started just over a year ago. Driven by the idea, how we can add even more value to existing documents, how we can keep "standard" transactional pieces evergreen.

A huge thank you to the PrintMediaCentr team and Deborah Corn for your work and for bringing us all together and beaming us live out to the Printerverse.

We are excited to be part of this exceptional event. Solimar Systems will be in the Xerox booth driving their production color inkjets – Rialto, Brenva and Trivor.

The Women of Distinction designation has been in existence for 15 years and is one of the OutputLinks Communications Group's industry recognition programs.

THANK YOU to the Graph Expo team for organizing this great event. We appreciate all the efforts everyone is putting into making these shows such a success.

Thank you everyone at Xplor and Xerox for the healthy first meal of the day, dozens of great meetings ith customers, more panels, receptions during and after the conference, dinners, award ceremonies, music & great networking.

We're just getting ready for day 3 at Graph Expo - Thanks to Xerox we had a late night yesterday, so rather than Good night and sweet dreams, it's: Good morning and have a glorious day, today!

On the first day of Graph Expo 2016, personalization got a completely different touch: Did you know Edward Scissorhands has three sisters and they work in the paper cutting business?

Conferences never really start the day they're announced. Our team started months ago preparing for Graph Expo, others spent the past couple of days here in Orlando to help bring everything together.

Here we go, it's pack-the-suitcase-time again. The usual suspects, business/conference outfit, soft cushioned shoes for after hour events followed by laptop, business cards and brochures for our visitors.

We're not just showcasing our latest solution during Graph Expo, our Inkjet Mailing & Efficience Solution has been chosen a MUST SEE 'EMS.

This session will take you on a thought-provoking journey to uncover ROI tactics that professionals use to navigate business case barriers and improve business case proposal success rates.

A heartfelt thank you for a lot of hard work. As we're heading into the second half of the year, let's take a moment and look back.

As we are digesting our drupa 2016 impressions, following up on all the contacts, we were also busy on editing some videos we put together for you during the massive event.

This is not to say that the printing industry never sees any other days of glory. But as we all know, drupa is different. Special.

There is no such thing as a #print industry. Print has always been in the communication industry says @printfuture at #drupa2016 cube. We think pretty much

Nine days... It doesn't really feel like it's already been nine days here at drupa, at the Xerox booth. All of us coming out to Duesseldorf thought, we know it all, have seen it all.

Do you remember the days, when grandma took the tinsel off the Christmas tree after the holiday season? Carefully, folding it away for next year? She definitely made a difference, and her eco-friendly act was way ahead of its time.

If you had seen what we have seen today, you would totally understand why it's suddenly all about interior design and not printing. Having said that, that's

Do you remember Frodo Baggins, the Hobbit, big flat feet? That's what our feet feel like right now. But, no complaining, the excitement is worth it.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, they say. And let's admit it, we probably are a bit biased when we talk about the beauty of print, colors, coating,

5 days of magic... Remember, we started with the Xerox pre-drupa event. 5 days of exciting innovation, magical moments where paper turns into 3D objects,

Production printing for us means attention to details. No matter how many records you have in your database, no matter whether it's black & white or color,

Those of you who know Solimar Systems, know that we like to run the extra mile for our clients. A vital part of my body seems to turn into a marathon runner

Today #drupa2016 opened it's doors to the public. For us, it's great to see so many new faces. But that's about the only thing that really changes at drupa.

It's been a stormy journey to Europe for some of the Solimar team. We were wondering are these the winds of change going through the printing industry?

Solimar Systems is demonstrating how catalog, book, and transactional workflows can be seamlessly managed by it's universal Chemistry™ CCM Platform.