Early Adopters Of High Speed Variable Data Printing For Highly Targeted Print Products.

Variable data printing is a printing technology that allows for incredibly distinct personalization of individual print pieces across an entire print run. VDP utilizes high-quality digital printing presses combined with template-driven products that use “variable data” (text, colors, images, or logos) that can be changed dynamically from printed piece to printed piece by inserting unique data for each. VDP relies on correctly planned, stored, and formatted data in a database (an Excel file, for example).

Specific promotional material, postcards, letters, mailers and more — basically any print product designed to be viewed and interacted with by a unique recipient can utilize variable data to better target and personalize that product.

Proper file preparation, coupled with print designs optimized to best present that data, are critical to efficient VDP. Each item that potentially changes from piece to piece must be included in the data you provide. By taking ownership and understanding of the data fields necessary to complete your project, you can save both time and money. Raff will work closely with you to determine whether your data has been formatted properly for seamless integration into VDP.

Ideally, Raff prefers properly formatted Excel files — .xls, .xlsx, .csv.

The most common errors relate to uniformity and consistency of data from record to record. Not separating first and last names into separate fields, combining multiple lines of address information into a single field, submitting different sizes or resolutions for images, and including extraneous information not required by the project are by far the types of errors we encounter most. We recommend you clean and prepare the data you own — you are the experts in that data, after all. However, we’re more than willing to help.