Variable Data Printing & Marketing 

To a large degree, variable data is an extension of the above.  What Web to Print VDP does, is allow any portal visitor or consumer to select a product from an established product library or catalog, and modify the elements within the template allowing originality, creativity, and furthermore uniqueness.  Variable components could be text fields such as names, addresses, phone numbers, extensions emails or even graphics and images.  Aside from the possibility of changing the templates manually one at a time, some systems can allow for database uploads, whereby the data within the spreadsheet will determine what variable will be changed within a printed piece.  If your data indicates the exact gender and demographic of your list, then VDP systems can determine what messaging and imagery will appear on the printed piece to make it more appealing for the gender and demographic receiving the piece.  These capabilities are also applied beyond print into digital marketing such as email, sms texts, personalized url’s, etc., so that all forms of communication to a specific recipient is extremely targeted and particularly impactful.  VDP has been successfully applied to direct mail marketing, customer relationship management, advertising, invoicing and accounting.

More advanced VDP features will add impressive template libraries and image personalization capabilities where personalization takes place within the imagery such as seeing your name as a tattoo on someone’s body or spray painted on a monument.  The solutions may also include client-driven mailing services,  mailing automation, list buying and data cleansing services.

Retail B2C Print Portals:

Whereas the first initiatives in Web to Print were taken to create a smooth and convenient experience for established print customers, the expansion of web to print in the retail space now focuses on attracting new customers to an online print business.  Business to consumer (or B2C) Web to Print portals allow print shops to offer convenient online printing to their customers. B2C printing often involves a web to print storefront or a web to print e-commerce portal where customers can create, edit and print their documents by adding them to a shopping cart.

User interfaces were created in javascript or flash so that website visitors could design or modify a desired template to their liking.  Over time these interfaces have become more advanced and optimized to improve user experience.  After designs are done, it is then previewed for approval and ordering.  The ordering of common printed items such as business cards, postcards, flyers, envelopes, letterhead have become easier to design and order due to these types of technologies.

It was probably at this stage, and with this type of technology in which the printing industry and the personalized garment ‎/ promo industry began to converge. The same canvas that can present a paper document with variable text or imagery can present a shirt, a hat or a mug and so on.

These Web-to-Print systems improved over time, becoming nicer-looking, easier to use, while incorporating more effective print shop management and integration capabilities on the back-end. People looking for a contemporary solution will need to look for an HTML 5 based solution as Flash has been rejected by tablets and smart phones while. Browsers also, no longer contain Flash as an embedded technology and therefore not recommended as a long term investment.

Online Printing & File uploading:

At the most basic level, Web to Print involves tools such as emails and FTP servers that allow print consumers to deliver originally designed files to print suppliers via the web with online printing and file uploading. Early initiatives online printing and file uploading were undertaken by the major manufacturers of printing machines to their print shop customers by facilitating the delivery of print files to print shops, from their customers.  However, most of the technologies created within this space were “closed” and limited to work exclusively with the machines provided by manufacturers.  These basic forms of “electronic delivery” eventually evolved into the print driver concept where printers would distribute disks to encourage the installation of “print drivers”. With a print driver installed on your computer, you would be able to send files directly to your preferred print supplier by opening the file you want to print in its native application (i.e. Photoshop, InDesign, Adobe PDF reader, Word, Excel, etc.) and then select the print driver from your list of printers to send your files to the print company for processing. Where as most machine manufacturers tried to limit the ability of the drivers to interact solely with their machines, the technology providers in the market ultimately prevailed.  Today, many universal and even branded pdf print drivers are now available to communicate with any machine without being limited by a particular machine manufacturer.

It is worth noting, that all of the above are still in wide scale use, each one with its strengths and weaknesses.  Emails are generally limited in the file sizes that they can either send or receive. FTP uploads can take large files, but unless the file is expected, there is little information related to the file sender nor is there any indication or record as to when the file was sent if the sender does not personally follow up. Lastly, both email and FTP will send an original document, but due to the broad range of documents being created around the world across various technologies, it is possible that the printer will not have the required application to read and accept the document. The optimal file format is PDF. There are many PDF conversion solutions. There are some efficient branded Web to Print pdf print driver solutions that bundle all the mediums of file sending into one eliminating the barriers to file sending. GoPrint2, for example, is a preferred solution.