Hybrid Software rounds off bumper crop of installations

In a conversation with PrintWeek India, Ramkumar Srinivasan of Hybrid Software highlights the uses of PackZ software for the print-packaging and label industry and how the Belgium-based firm is making steady inroads in India

23 Jun 2017 | By Priya Raju

Packaging and label pre-press specialist Hybrid Software have booked five marquee orders for its PackZ software since Drupa 2016. These include: Repro Poly and Digiflex in Hyderabad; Veepee Arts Studio in Bengaluru; Repro Plate in Chennai and Rotomaster in Faridabad.
 
In addition, the Belgium-based firm has a boost from existing customers like Uflex and PinMark who have purchased additional licenses during Drupa.
 
Ramkumar Srinivasan of Hybrid Software said to PrintWeek India, "We are working on a lot of interesting leads for the moment which will help us grow the market share."
 
Packz is a 64-bit PDF editor, which works on both Windows and Mac OS platform with same GUI. It has all the pre-press capabilities required for editing, trapping, and step-and-repeat.
 
Ramkumar Srinivasan added, "Most importantly we don’t convert files into proprietary formats which are seen as a hindrance in today’s open platform." And so, PackZ came as a revolution when there was no innovation and alternative choice in decades for editors with proprietary file format or Adobe Illustrator (AI) based solutions. So, we bridged the gap between these editors and the AI based solutions.
 
At the moment Hybrid Software offers version 4.0 and the upcoming 4.1 version due to release in less than two months. The main purpose of this release is the Illustrator Roundtrip functionality. 
 
Ramkumar Srinivasan explained, "Apart from PackZ, we have CloudFlow for extensive automation, RIP, and online approval. Our association with GMG Open Color is the answer for fixed palette printing." When queried if they have a CAD solution, he replied, no. But he added, "We can work with any CAD solution in the market giving more flexibly to customers to make their choice."
 
PackZ has many users in India and Indian managing companies abroad and Ramkumar Srinivasan is optimistic about the product. He said, "The numbers are likely to grow faster in the immediate future."
 
Hybrid Software is the fastest-growing software company in the graphic industry with 80+ employees across five continents and over 500 customers with more than 1,200 PackZ and 100 Cloudflows installations worldwide. 
 

PackZ at a glance

PackZ is a professional editor designed for the packaging and label industry. The software is built around PDF, which is a globally accepted file format for the interchange of all packaging graphic designs. PackZ is an open architecture which means it can work both on Mac operating system and Windows; the Graphical User Interface (GUI) remains the same.

The software comes with Native PDF editing. Hence, the files require no conversion to any other or internal file format throughout the life cycle in pre-press. PackZ takes complete advantage of the computing power of the hardware. The 64-bit computers with multiprocessing and multithreading enable PackZ to deal with complex designs or multiple files seamlessly at the same time.

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PackZ is a standalone system, wherein it is a production oriented with a built-in feature to seamlessly address all the parameters required for packaging in offset, flexo and gravure process for the digital file preparation. This is in terms of parameters such as CAD, interactive and grid-based step and repeat.

Additionally, the software can also address parameters for production such as shrink sleeve warping, dot control and dot gain compensation which is critical in printing, barcode detection, and creation extended gamut printing among others.

The software provides tools for quality assurance, which includes full resolution, preview; incremental save and roll back provision and finally, files inspection system.

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The Power Trapper tool helps the user in verifying the trap result by highlighting areas of interest where attention is needed. The White Underprint tool can be used to combine multiple shapes. This helps to speed up the creation of white, varnish, embossing and braille plates. While the Flattener tool eliminates transparencies, overprints, and makes PDF compatible with older RIPs.

The PackZ software has the ability to create barcodes such as EAN, QR, Data Matrix, Laetus, UTF, PZN and much more. Additionally, it can also detect most of the barcodes and their characteristics in supplied design files, so that barcodes can be adapted to comply with product and printing standards.