Eastern Michigan University Teaches Variable Data Printing With DesignMerge!

Eastern Michigan University is located in Southeast Michigan, approximately 30 miles west of Detroit. The College of Technology offers a course in Digital Imaging and Reproduction which is part of the Communications Technology major. Communications Technology is a multidisciplinary major that prepares students to eventually move into mid-management careers in technologies of the communications industry. The class, CMT 207, implements aspects of digital printing and variable data in the print industry.

The 207 class was revised from the previous content based on film conversion and plate making to reflect new trends in the print industry. This was a direct result of attending the Teachers Conference sponsored by GATF and PIA in conjunction with Graph Expo. The future direction of the print industry was very clear based on the various presenters. Given the increased interest towards digital it became clear that students needed practical experiences to meet the changing needs of potential employers.

Following is a short interview with David Gore, Program Coordinator, Communication Technology School of Technology Studies discussing how DesignMerge helped meet the needs of Eastern Michigan University's leading edge print curriculum.

	Why did you choose to teach DesignMerge as part of Eastern Michigan University's Communications Technology major? By virtue of being at Graph Expo it was possible to explore the many vendors' solutions in variable data printing. After listening to salespeople and watching product demonstrations, DesignMerge variable data software seemed to have the best interface with Adobe InDesign and appeared to be more flexible than other variable data products. It also seemed less dependent on the user having to be a database and XML expert. This is a clear advantage allowing designers to design and still incorporating variable data without having to spend an excessive amount of time devoted to coding. DesignMerge seemed to be the best fit, especially for the educational/teaching environment.
	What was the ROI for teaching this class using DesignMerge? The expectation of exposing students to VDP in this class is that they will be prepared to meet the needs of employers by having had hands-on lab experience with variable data software in their class projects. The bottom line for us is that our students leave prepared and ready to compete for jobs. From a fiscal perspective, the ROI was the best we could find by working with the salespeople at Meadows to purchase limited professional copies of DesignMerge supplemented with less costly lab seats for instruction. This provided every student an opportunity to work with the program. Since our mission is educational/instruction and we do not see a traditional profit based on our investment Meadows Publishing provided us a way to keep within the very limited budget of our university and still provide students with the best educational experience.

What student examples would you like to share? Following is an annotated InDesign document from two of our many talented design students, Kimberly Hopper and Jay Baucher. Kim and Jay used DesignMerge to create personalized documents. In this assignment students were provided the database that Jay developed and created that included fictitious names, injuries, images, medications etc. and were instructed to create a patient medical release forms that would extract all the data, text, articles and images to produce a personalized document for each patient at the time of discharge from the clinic/hospital. The annotated example below is Kim's design work.

See Us at On Demand 2011 in Washington DC

Meadows will be demonstrating the very latest version of DesignMerge in booth 2937 at the On Demand Expo, March 22-24 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington DC. The demonstration
will include a preview of the new DesignMerge Image module, which is an integration feature that allows DesignMerge to work seamlessly with a number of Variable Image packages. Please stop by for a personalized demonstration.

We hope to see you there!

DesignMerge Technical Support FAQ

What can I do about those pesky Empty Links?

A DesignMerge Variable Link is Empty when a record does not contain any data for that Link. DesignMerge provides several options for Empty Links. Here is a description of each of these "If Link is Empty" options:

• Flag as Error
  A merge session will fill the Link with the global No Data Error, which is specified on the DesignMerge “Preferences” window (you may access the “Preferences” window by selecting “Preferences” from the “DesignMerge” menu). By default, the No Data Error is “Empty Field!” Please note that if you select this option for a Variable Link and a record does not have data for the Link, then the No Data Error (by default, “Empty Field!”) is what will be printed for that merged Link.
  
• Ignore
  Will not merge the Link; the Link will continue to display what it contained before that record was merged into the document. For example, if the Link was displaying "Address_2" before merging this record, the Link will display "Address_2" after the record is merged into the document.
  
• Delete
  Will completely remove the Link from the merged page. In the case of a Picture Link, the entire box will be deleted.
  
  Please note that during a File or Print merge session, which merges each step of records into their own copy of the original page(s), DesignMerge will delete the Link without displaying any warnings. Deleting the Link on one of these copies will not delete it on the original page so the Link will still be present for later records.
  
  However, during a Test merge session, which operates on the original document instead of a copy, DesignMerge will by default prompt you to choose whether you wish to "Skip", "Delete", or "Flag & Continue" the Empty Link. Normally, you will prefer to "Flag & Continue" so the Empty Link will remain on the page for later records to use. If you choose to Delete the Empty Link during a Test merge session, the Link will no longer be present for other records, even if those records have data for that Link.
  
• Substitute
  Will use the data entered here. For Text Links, the text that is entered here will be merged into the Link. For Picture, Article, or GroupPicture Links, DesignMerge will assume the text entered here is the file name or full path name of an external file that DesignMerge will attempt to locate and import.
  
• Remove Empty Lines
  If you have chosen "Delete" for the "If Link is Empty" setting, then you may also wish to enable "Remove Empty Lines". When this option is on (checked), DesignMerge will remove the line that the Empty Link was on if there are no printable characters on the line (the line is blank). The other lines in the box will move either up or down, according to the formatting that you have applied to that text.
  

For an example of a DesignMerge job that includes an Empty Link, please see Tutorial #1 (Part 1), the "Form Letter" tutorial. available in PDF format in the DesignMerge product folder that the installer places in your system's Applications/Program Files folder.

Current DesignMerge Software Versions

Are you running the most current version of the DesignMerge software? Check the table below. For information on upgrades, please contact our sales department at sales@meadowsps.com

MACINTOSH:

WINDOWS:

DesignMerge Pro Bundle Software

Professional Variable Data Printing Software for QuarkXPress® and Adobe® InDesign®

www.designmerge.com