Using digital technologies

Understanding digital transformation as a process

Entering the digital transformation

Advantages of using printformer.io

May makes everything new. In our case, it's April, and we're talking specifically about our website. A lot has happened in the last few months since our office moved from Stuttgart to tranquil Ludwigsburg. After the new look offline, i.e. our new office, a small facelift was also urgently needed for our digital home.

Admittedly, it's not always easy to cut out the old habits and try a completely new layout. In our case, however, the general overhaul of the website was more than necessary. Too much has happened here in the last 12 months alone and many new features needed their own space. In addition to the modern and much lighter look, we have now structured and organized our digital home more clearly. The home page as a central "take off" with an overview of the various areas and the new page navigation offer quick access to all sections and guide you through the rissc universe with ease, whether on desktop or mobile.

Our printformer, the heart of our Web2Print passion, not only presents itself with a revised logo and its own section on the new website, but also shows in detail what it is capable of in the Web2Print area. With our cloud software, we have created our own standard that is ready for use in just a few minutes and can be integrated into any existing system. Automatic updates that continuously expand your own Web2Publish offering and catapult your personal business into another galaxy are of course included!

The printformer.io area is a brand new addition to our rissc universe, both in terms of color scheme, logo and function. As the name suggests, we are presenting a special version of the printformer software - the printformer.io app. With this innovation, we have combined the best of both worlds and easily integrated our printformer into the Shopify e-commerce platform environment. We show in individual steps how simple, uncomplicated and fast it is now possible to realize your own print store with an integrated editor using printformer.io. Web2Print has never been easier.

With all the new features, we feel completely at home in our revamped digital home and would be delighted if you would take a closer look at our new rissc universe. Feedback is always welcome - have fun exploring!

On your marks, get set, go! Once again this year, the Online Print Symposium in Munich at the beginning of March was on the agenda for us. As in previous years, we were once again there as a premium partner and were able to present our "rissc universe" to around 300 visitors.

Although the omens for OPS 2020 were not necessarily positive due to the onset of the coronavirus crisis, how could it be otherwise? It was therefore all the nicer to discover many new faces among the visitors alongside many old acquaintances from the industry. With around 300 participants, the premises of the Infinity Hotel in Munich were once again well attended this year and provided the perfect backdrop for our now familiar blue "rissc universe". Visually, however, there was a small but no less important addition - bright green in the form of balloons now also adorned our stand, in addition to versions in blue, and already generated the first inquiries after just a few minutes.

The solution to the puzzle became obvious to anyone who looked at the additional color scheme and the printed logos. In addition to Shopify, a completely new logo, the printformer.io logo, was now also displayed there, as OPS was the perfect event for us to present our new app to a wider professional audience. Our CEO Alex Sperrfechter had already creatively revealed this to attentive visitors in the OPS teaser videos (click here for the VIDEO ) and those who wanted to have everything explained to them live afterwards had ample opportunity to do so.

Our printformer.io app, a version of our printformer specially tailored for seamless integration into Shopify, now combines the best of both worlds. After we implemented the first integration of this kind in the Shopify webshop of Logolini®Präsente at the end of last year(click here for the article), we will continue to rely on the innovative e-commerce platform Shopify as an e-commerce backbone in the future with its presentation at OPS 2020. The topic of transformation and digitalization has been a real challenge for many companies in the printing and media services industry, and not just since the current corona crisis. The crisis now clearly shows how important it is to deal with these issues in a future-oriented and sustainable manner. If not yesterday, then all the more so today. With the release of printformer.io, we give companies of all kinds the simple opportunity to overcome these previously insurmountable entry hurdles in the area of Web2Publish and support the process with this integration of the printformer software into Shopify, which can be realized in just a few steps. Anyone who wants and needs to take advantage of the signs of the times right now can set up their own store in just a few minutes and use the printformer.io app to place a professional print store with editor and print data upload on the market. Fast time-to-market without lengthy implementation processes has never been more in demand than now - as echoed by interested visitors to our stand at the Online Print Symposium. If you would like to find out more, you can obtain further information in advance at www.printformer.io.

For us, the days at the OPS in Munich were once again a complete success. The numerous positive feedback, the generally positive atmosphere and the many interesting discussions and inquiries optimistically round off the importance of this event for us. With the orientation of our new app, we have hit a nerve in the eyes of the industry, which represents a real option for many companies to maintain their future prospects. Reason enough for us to continue to impress with our passion for print, our experience in Wep2Print and Web2Publish and with customer-oriented software solutions. We are already looking forward to 2021 and the next OPS in Munich

Everyone is talking about web-to-print systems. In this article about our customer Utsch24.de, we take a closer look at how our printformer can be used in a very specific and uncomplicated way.

Every car has it and yet it is hardly noticed: the license plate. The company behind it is Erich Utsch AG from Siegen, where millions of license plates are produced every year for customers from all over the world. For over five decades, the global market leader has been responsible for technologies and integrated system solutions for the production, personalization, registration and identification of license plates. It also offers a wide range of products such as license plate blanks, vehicle recycling systems, laminators and laser coding systems. In addition to the classic license plate, windshield labels, license plate holders and FUN plates can also be found here.

How can a license plate manufacturer use our web-to-print system? Utsch AG, together with the dotfly agency, has come up with a creative service for its private customers: an online store in which an individual license plate holder, the desired license plate or a decorative FUN plate can be designed. The "Configure" button opens our converted HTML5 editor in a mobile-first version and can therefore be used on a tablet.

The idea behind mobile first is that the presentation works first on mobile devices. Up to now, optimization for desktop screens has come first. This means that the mobile-first version is limited to the essentials. The clear advantage here is that no additional app needs to be used.

Now slowly again, how does the Web2Print system actually work as a "commercial tool"? The prinformer can be used to create quotations for any print product. The system can be used universally for the entire printing industry, so the settings can be flexibly adapted to the respective product. Thanks to the printformer's API functionality, the calculator can be embedded in any external system; at GGP Media, this is the Magento store system. There are two options before the calculation: fixed price lists and configurable functions. Firstly, an Excel file with pre-defined prices can be imported; our web-to-print system links these with selectable properties. This means that price combinations can be defined individually for each customer. Secondly, properties can be stored in the admin, whereby an option, e.g. finishing of the book, is linked to a specific price. The price changes automatically depending on the setting and the number of products.

The printformer not only serves as a design tool , as is the case with the online store Utsch24.de, but also enables the quick and easy calculation of books from GGP Media's 18 km high book tower.

To give you an idea of where web-to-print is used and how our printformer can be applied, I will present some projects with our customers on this blog.

A tower of 1 million print products 18 kilometers high is created, symbolically speaking, every day at GGP Media. Eight books are produced every second. This requires 70,000 tons of paper every year, which corresponds to an area the size of Saarland. The large print shop has been part of the Bertelsmann Printing Group since the beginning of 2016. GGP Media offers a wide range of services: pre-press service, production of e-books and print products such as brochures, paperbacks, catalogs, leaflets as well as further processing and logistics.

With the words print jobs, pre-press service and catalogs, web-to-print can't be far away. And so it is. Our printformer is used at GGP Media as a powerful calculation tool for huge quantities of paper and countless print products. The web-to-print system is used, for example, to calculate a book with all its settings such as number of pages, material and finishing. Once the selection process is complete, a PDF file is generated and stored as a quotation. Providing your customers with a binding quote is a time-consuming process, but with the calculator, GGP Media can show how much it will cost to produce a book in just a few minutes.