Questions about RIP Software

[cdsgraphic]

Hello to all!

I posted this over on printingdigital.net as well... hope someone can help.

I am getting ready to take the big leap into digital printing with the mimaki 75 combo. I am in need of some advice though... All of the dealers I have talked with want me to get flexi, for the RIP if nothing else. Well, I'm a Corel user since version 3 (i think it was) and using 12 now, at this time I don't see doing any design work in flexi. We have an older version of flexi (5) that runs our plotter now. But that's all we do with it.

The mimaki comes with a RIP (raster link pro) all the dealers tell me it is junk or hard to use and limited. Is it really that bad? I mean do I need to fork out another $2000 just to make this thing print?

I guess I see some of you that have rolands using the rip that comes with it. Is that better?

I was told that the FineCut for the plotter works pretty well out of corel. Does anybody have any experience with it?

Thanks,
Trevor
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[Steve C.]

There is a Rip and Print program for working straight from Corel. I have heard good things about it, but I can't remenber what it is called. It is available from SSK.

 

[Steve C.]

CyberPrint.....$995
http://www.signsupplystore.com/ProductCart/pc/viewCat_I.asp?idCategory=51

 

[iSign]

I have a Mimaki also.
I was a CasMate user for years. I have always been a big fan of Adobe Illustrator, so I do a lot of design work there, but I got a second hand copy of CasMate along with my first plotter 10 years ago, so I just used the CasMate for all my cutting. I had also used it at jobs I worked at before going out on my own, so it was easy to jump in & cut vinyl with. Over the years I was quickly able to spot the handful of functions that were easier in CasMate & also jump back to Illustrator for the many things it does better since most of the better programs are able to import & export vectors back & forth with little to no trouble. 6 years ago I got my Edge & it cam with Omega for outputting jobs. I have continued to use Illustrator as my main design program (like you might use Corel) but it has been no trouble to take those files into Omega, save as .plt files for future work in Omega, & sometimes even bringing in CasMate files.

3 years ago I was looking ahead & seeing that the lack of support for CasMate was something that I would eventually not be able to deal with. I bought Flexi at a drastically reduced "crossgrade" price available to CasMate users. It ended up sitting on a shelf for 3 years, BUT... I did gradually wean myself off CasMate because the edge work & Omegas compatibility with Illustrator resulted in me doing far less work in CasMate, so this spring when I hired my first employee I didn't want to waste time training him on obsolete software so we finally plugged in Flexi & it is working out to be an excellent program (like so many folks here told me so many times)

..so where am I going with this? Last month I bought the 60" Mimaki & wondered what RIP I should get. I was told that my Flexi sign pro had a good one, so thats what I use.
I think a good rip is critical when you've invested as much as you have in your printing. I also think the interface of having a rip included in a design software where you can import rastor images & vector images & save them as Flexi files with all print & cut info in one file & open that & send the rip & print files & the cut files from the same production manager... I mean, I'm not sure how cumbersome other options might be, but if you do get Flexi, I don't think your proficiency in Corel will be wasted at all, you can bring the corel files into Flexi just as easily I would imagine as it would be to bring them into Cyberprint, but I'd be willing to wager that there is probably a lot more you can do with them in Flexi.

 

[Steve C.]

I suggested CyberPrint only as a less expensive alternative, but I use FlexiPro myself for rip and print. I am a CorelDRAW user and find that the flow between Corel and Flexi is very smooth in most cases. I usually have to convert all text to curve and fountain fills sometimes need adjusting, but I can open my Corel files right from Flexi without the need to Import/Export. I use Corel 8 and I have heard that higher versions do not work as well. Flexi also has a teriffic Vectorizing feature that makes it almost worth the extra expence. I guess my biggest problem with Flexi is that I think for the money you should receive more than 90 day tech support from Scanvec. On the other hand the Manual is pretty easy to follow for training yourself.
I also find myself doing more and more design work in Flexi as I become use to it, but it will never take the place of Corel.