The present invention relates in general to print imposition methods for creating personalized packages and in particular to merging variable information for packaging impositions.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Graphic arts jobs prepared for packaging printing use a special workflow. The workflow is dependent upon the design of the intended package. A package is often a cardboard box used to carry commercial merchandise, such as electronic devices or food products. Each box comes in different sizes, with different graphic art content printed on each box.

Figure 1 illustrates a design of such a packaging element 10, showing a flattened two-dimensional representation of a package. Such designs are often prepared by computer aided design (CAD) applications such as ArtiosCad from EskoArtworks or Impact from Arden Software.

Figure 2A, 2B, and 2C each illustrates a different content applied on a packaging element 10 forming different packages 22, 24, and 26. A typical example can be a juice product manufacturer. Each package has an identical design with different content printed on them, for example citrus, orange, and apple juices. The graphic art design and content is often prepared by graphic arts designers using packages such as Adobe Creative Suite or Quark Xpress.

Figure 3 illustrates an example of a designed printed imposition sheet 30. The imposition sheet example contains four identical packaging elements 34 populated on same imposition sheet. A packaging element 10 is typically a non-rectangular shape as is shown in Figure 1. Organizing such shapes on a given printed imposition sheet 30 is achieved by dedicated package design applications such as Pandora or StepOne from Kodak. A packaging design workflow will include at least the following steps: 1. Design the step and repeat the packaging shape only resulting with a text file written according to at least one of the following packaging oriented file formats: CFF2/DDES2/DXF containing sheets size information and data describing the single packaging shape and step, and repeat of each instance. Each step contains position and orientation information. 2. The data created in the first step will be imported by a graphic art design step and repeat application such as Kodak Pandora. Each repeat will be assigned graphic arts (artworks) information. The application user may further populate all repeats with the same artwork, or may assign different artworks for different repeats.

3. The data from the first step is converted into Postscript/PDF and imported into a design package such as Adobe Creative Suite where each repeat is assigned graphic arts (artworks) information in a manual fashion. The user may further populate all repeats within the same artwork, or may assign different artworks for different repeats. With the introduction of personalized printing, each printed document can directly be addressed to a specific recipient. Such personal documents can accommodate personal information such as name and address, but may also allow different image content. For example, an advertisement can be directed to populations that differ in age, wealth, and venue. Variable data printing (VDP) jobs are well established, however, it is not used for, or easily adapted to, design and print of packaging jobs.

The proposed invention described hereunder provides a solution for variable data printing in packaging printing.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Briefly, according to one aspect of the present invention a printing imposition method for creating packaging imposition schemes includes: providing target printing sheet properties; providing at least one designed package element wherein the designed package element includes at least one variable information object; providing variable information data to be inserted in at least one variable information object; creating variable package elements by merging the variable information data and at least one variable information object in at least one designed package element; and performing step and repeat of the variable package elements on the target printing sheet according to the target printing sheet properties. These and other objects, features, and advantages of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon a reading of the following detailed description when taken in conjunction with the drawings wherein there is shown and described an illustrative embodiment of the invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS Figure 1 is a schematic illustrating a prior art packaging element die cut design;

Figures 2A, 2B, 2C are schematics illustrating prior art packaging elements each populated with different graphic designs;

Figure 3 is a schematic illustrating prior art imposition layout sheet with same packaging element;

Figure 4 is a schematic illustrating an imposition layout sheet with the same packaging element including variable elements according to the present invention;

Figure 5 is a schematic illustrating an imposition layout sheet with a packaging element containing different content;

Figure 6 is a schematic illustrating an imposition layout sheet including packaging elements with different design and content;

Figure 7 is a schematic illustrating an imposition layout sheet with different packaging jobs on the same sheet; Figure 8 is a schematic illustrating an imposition layout sheet with different packaging jobs wherein each packaging job is a variable information job and all jobs and are printed on the same sheet; and

Figure 9 is a schematic illustrating generation of variable packaging documents out of variable data records repository. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

In the variable data printing (VDP) world, assigning different artworks to similar repeats cannot be performed manually as is done for non-VDP packaging jobs. The number of instances representing different artwork in a VDP packaging job can amount to the hundreds or thousands of different instances. Such a job cannot be practically handled manually by an operator, dressing each repeat with different information.

Figure 4 illustrates a packaging imposition sheet 40. The packaging element 34 is identical for all four instances on packaging imposition sheet 40. Additionally each instance having a variable component (44, 45, 46, 47) attached to each of the packaging elements 34. Figure 9 shows variable components 92, 93, 94 retrieved from variable data records repository 91 and each record is populated into a newly generated variable packaging documents 95, 96, 97. This example shows variable components of text type, but each record can be of a different type such as image or graphics, for example. Various variable components can be configured and automatically graphically positioned on a different variable place holder on each packaging element 34. The amount of records in such variable data repository can be very large, hence resulting in very large number of packaging elements created automatically to conform with the different records.

Figure 5 illustrates a packaging imposition sheet 50 having packaging components with different artwork but same die cut design (52, 53, 54, 55) imposed on packaging imposition sheet 50. Figure 6 shows packaging imposition sheet 60 with plurality of packaging element 62, each different in die cut design as well as in different artwork design.

Figure 7 illustrate a packaging imposition sheet 70 with three different packaging jobs imposed on the sheet. The example shows the same die cut design for all three jobs 72, 74, and 76, but with different artwork. Job 72 has two instances on sheet 70, job 74 one instance, and job 76 three instances. Reference is made to Figure 8 which illustrates packaging imposition sheet 80 similar to 70. Packaging imposition sheet 80 is configured in addition to populate the instances of each of the jobs 72, 74, and 76 with variable data streams 82, 84, and 86 configured to automatically change populate the variable components designed on packaging imposition sheet 80.

The variable component population can be performed before the raster image processor (RIP) or during the RIP by equipping the RIP with variable information processing means. The Creo RIP used in the Creo digital color server is capable to process Creo Variable Postscript (VPS), personalized print markup language (PPML) or other formats such PDF equipped with variable data components. In order to take advantage of VPS capable RIP, the data that is generated by the packaging sheet design application has to be provided is a VPS format or other variable information capable format such as PPML.

The invention has been described in detail with particular reference to certain preferred embodiments thereof, but it will be understood that variations and modifications can be effected within the scope of the invention.

PARTS LIST packaging element packaging element packaging element packaging element printed imposition sheet packaging element packaging imposition sheet variable component variable component variable component variable component packaging imposition sheet die cut design die cut design die cut design die cut design packaging imposition sheet packaging element packaging imposition sheet job 1 imposed on sheet 70 job 2 imposed on sheet 70 job 3 imposed on sheet 70 packaging imposition sheet variable element stream for job 72 variable element stream for job 74 variable element stream for job 76 variable data records repository variable component variable component variable component variable packaging document 96 variable packaging document

97 variable packaging document