Inspire to Flexi Upgrade?

[Colin]

Has anyone done the switch from Inspire to Flexi? If so, was it worth it?
I don't do large format printing (yet). My computer was upgraded from windows 98 to XP and Inspire 1.6 runs well on it....(apparently Inspire won't run on a newer mother-board with a pure version of XP).
Any issues with opening/importing old Inspire files in Flexi? (Fonts / kerning).

Does anyone out there do large format printing from Inspire?

Thank you.

 

[iSign]

I uopgraded from CasMate Pro to Flexi. 7.0
I'm sure I will consider it worthy (I paid $1100) once I start using it (maybe next year?)

..but thay said my fonts would be usable (or actually the same fonts would be provided in a more up to date format... which they were) & my old files would open.

They were partly right, but there was one big issue that almost had me returning the software. I'm not sure if this would hold true in Inspire too, but it was a known issue with Casmate once I brought it up AFTER buying Flexi... The files with text that was not converted to outlines in CasMate opens up as text, but the kerning & various text parameters will be corrupted slightly upon opening. The text may not fit your layouts anymore, may not be centered anymore & generally look out of whack.

On layouts where the text is shown inside a box or border, the problems may be evident & easily fixed... but loose text on the page will not offer you clues to how much it has been distorted by new kerning parameters... so if you need it to match, you may not realize that it is changed just from looking at it.

 

[Jen Goodwin]

The same thing happens when opening Inspire files in Flexi, but it gives you the option to convert the text to curves...of course you can no longer manipulate the text, but the layout is intact with proper kerning.