Variable data publishing

Essentially the same techniques are employed to perform variable-data publishing, as those utilized with variable data printing.

Further, variable-data can be used to build rule-based design schemes, including fonts, colors, and page formats.

However, the level of control that can be achieved varies, based upon how far into the document production process a variable-data tool is deployed.

For example, if variable-data insertion occurs just prior to output...it's not likely that the text flow or layout can be altered with nearly as much control as would be available at the time of initial document composition.

However, in the past 3 years the application of this technology has spread to web pages, emails, and mobile messaging.

BMUG Disk Catalog 1989, the first known example of direct database-to-negative publishing. Programmer Greg Dow and prepress expert Bill Woodcock published the annual catalog of BMUG's software archive using Nashoba FileMaker output display templates on Macintosh computers to image direct to film from which the plates were burned, on a Linotronic 300 imagesetter. Frontispieces were made in Adobe Illustrator 88 and interleaved in plate compositing. It was set in Adobe Bookman , and printed in grayscale at a 60-line screen for an intentionally minimalist effect.