Fiery FreeForm and FreeForm 2

Dismiss this until next updateThis documentation has been updated

The latest version of PrintShop Mail is currently 7.1. This documentation was updated on 2011-03-29 and covers the changes made in this version. If you are still using an older version of PrintShop Mail, you can access its documentation by using the Version: menu at the top-right corner of this screen.

If you wish to upgrade to PrintShop Mail7.1, you can do so via the Upgrade Request page. Note that in order to upgrade, you will need a valid OL Care contract as of 2010-09.

FreeForm jobs make use of the fact that the data in your document is divided in two layers, which contain the text and image objects in the document.

The master layer in a FreeForm job consists only of "static" objects, but the variable layer can contain a mix of both variable and static objects, depending on the order of the objects on your layout. This is a consequence of the fact that FreeForm does not allow data in the master layer to be printed on top of data in the variable layer.

These layers are sent to the FreeForm RIP in two separate jobs, not necessarily at the same time. The master data job is rasterized first, and stored under a user defined numeric ID. The RIP overlays the rasterized master data with the rasterized data of any variable data job that references the same ID. In this way, you can reuse the same master data for different variable data jobs.

How the objects are separated

Static objects have content that remains constant throughout the entire record set. An image object is static when it has an expression with a constant result. A text object is static when it does not contain any variable markers. A PDF object is always static. All other objects are considered to be variable. A variable object is reusable when its content is the same for at least two different records in the record set.

At printing, PrintShop Mail tries to assign as many static objects to the master layer as possible, starting with the object at the back of your layout, and working towards the front. All static objects up to (but not including) the first variable object are put in the master layer. All other objects make up the variable layer. Any reusable data in the variable layer will be cached in PostScript forms.

When using FreeForm and FreeForm 2, try to make sure that static objects are not placed on top of variable objects in the object order on your layout.

FreeForm does not fully support layout conditioning. In particular, it does not allow you to conditionally skip layouts. When SKIP is used, a BLANK page will be printed instead.