I'd imagine those businesses you're referring to have tight processes in place to convert color spaces, embed fonts, etc. and generally de-crap the misc file types they receive. Most independent shops can't even be bothered to buy a legit copy of Pitstop, or if they can, they don't go much beyond that step. So no, there's very little hope of making real money from an onslaught of jobs from 3rd rate applications when any profitable time has been consumed by manually correcting said files.
It's all fair and well to hold up the Banner of Automation, but unless the Owner is willing to put the money & training in place to implement such a scenario, it's all conjecture.
They do have tight process controls, at least one of them I know for sure does. What stops a company from having tight process controls like some of these guys? Is it that much to ask to be consistently good at something? I think people would be very surprised at how efficient companies like printingforless.com and Expresscopy.com are using good employees who are good at what they do. You don't have to be highlyautomated to do work like this. Putting dollars and time into training pays off. Find good people who fit the company's "ethic" or "mission" (what ever you want to call it) rather than a warm body to fill a seat.
I can't say enough about how well run printingforless.com is. They spend a lot of time training employees in house. They give employees a sense of autonomy and ownership in the work and the business. They spent the time to develop processes, test those processes, execute them and refine them. They are constantly learning and evolving.
Even if you don't do things like PFL.com or Expresscopy.com, why can't someone else develop similar systems and processes? What makes them or anyone else different? The "anomaly" or exception if you will. It's a business right? So run it like one and not a fire station where you're always rushing to put out a fire.
Proper Previous Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. It doesn't just sound good, it's sound advice.
The other popular title is PrintShop Deluxe, also made by the fine folks at Broderbund. Which is more powerful? Deluxe or Platinum?
PrintShopPro Deluxe is, Cory. The current version (PrintShop 23 Pro Publisher Deluxe) sells for $68.02 at Amazon Stores. Printmaster Platinum costs half that.
When Unitac still offered commercial printing (we're now strictly in-plant for our Printfire software manuals), we used InDesign for most of our work, but occasionally grabbed PrintShop for quick-and-simple stuff. Certificates, coupons, real estate flyers - whenever we knew we could use one of the templates. That was the biggest draw.
The problem back then was mainly with the low resolution of the generated .pdf files. Haven't upgraded to the current version, but from what I understand, the output is now hi-res. If anyone has problems with that, there's a solution on Tech Support, Manuals & Troubleshooting for Consumers from Dixiegirl_10. The fix is for PrintMaster, but apparently works for PrintShop as well.
BTW, you and mattbeals are both right, it shouldn't matter these days what the customer walks in with. If our print shop doors were still open, I wouldn't care if the job was on the back of a napkin.
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Originally Posted by Cory Smith
