brutus_maximus@adobeforums.com

I highly recommend XMPie uDirect if you're going to be doing this often. It is an industrial-strength VI tool that functions as a plugin to InDesign. The technology is scalable, meaning that you can upgrade to the uDirect Professional version, or even to the full Personal Effect version, and still be able to use files created with the Standard version. Even that version isn't cheap--we paid US$2,500 for a single license. Personal Effect is around US$20,000 or thereabouts.

PDF output is standard, but it's inadequate for graphic-rich files. That's where specialized VI output formats come to play. Instead of making a cumbersome output file, they cache the data and the static and dynamic elements, then let the RIP assemble those elements on-the-fly as it processes the file. You select one VI output format at the time of purchase. We chose to go with PPML, since we have native PPML support on our Xerox RIPs. Other formats available include VIPP and VPS. Do your research before you choose an output format--adding additional formats is very expensive.

gerald_singelmann@adobeforums.com

Brutus, thank you.
I was hoping there was someone here with more than a passing-glimpse knowledge on the matter.
All I saw was a 4 hour presentation of XMPie and that was quite impressive. Alas, the price range too ...

larry_grohman@adobeforums.com

A couple of lower end options... Print Shop Mail. That is a program that
works with PDF and has some pretty good features. The only thing I don't
like about it is it is licensed based on usage.

Also, you didn't say what color output device you are using, but if it by
chance is Fiery, you may have, or be able to get "Free Form" which works at
the rip to do exactly what you are needing. Create a static data file and
save to RIP, then send only your stripped down VD which is merged with the
pre-ripped static file and printed..
HTH
Larry

diane_king@adobeforums.com

I don't know how this affects the rip, but you can do a data merge with the repeated data on a master page. This would make the file size smaller because you only have the images once in the document instead of linked to every page. This is probably just as slow ripping however. I've noticed that ID (by itself) is not the best data merge option for large print jobs. We use it for generating name tags and tickets and other small media that is easy to print in house. Our large merges we let our mailing house do.