The choice between Rampage, Nexxus, Prinergy

[jrinmercer]

I have worked on Rampage, Trueflow and Prinergy.
I was a staunch Rampage guy until five years ago. I like many of you can't and don't have the time to trap, rip things for hours. We have 8 Presses, three shifts, and have only 4 Operators. I chose Prinergy for 3 huge reasons. 1 If you have worked on previous front ends, than prinergy is a snap. Very User Friendly. Traps native PDF, DCS and eps as well as Postscript(First changing it into a pdf) 3 The way I see the Prepress Industry going is all PDF. If you drop a PDF in Nexus and Rampage it hits a brick wall. It still takes forever. Prinergy you can dump those same files in and it chews it up. Here a liitle fruit for you.
I had a 198 page 8.5x11 Perfect Bound Catalog. It went through Prinergy, I a half and hour I had backed up digitals coming out. Now thats power.
Kodaks help desk however, is a different story. That has been my only hangup.

[jimbroski]

Really thats pretty interesting we dumped nexus and are switching over to Prinergy. What I liked about what I saw with prinergy is that you don't have to convert over your templates to JDF format unlike rampage, which is why I was kind of reluctant on switching over to JDF at my old shop. Not to mention I love the preps floating license. PDF Merge, PDF Compare, and Platebuilder do some great things as well. I look forward to working on prinergy, during the webex I saw how fast you impo a signature without having to go into preps. In a matter of minutes the flats were ready.

[happster]

I know that the answer is going to vary GREATLY, but considering Rampage versus Prinergy --> how does the pricing structure compare?

[jrinmercer]

You are going to love Prinergy. Good Luck.


As far the pricing goes. Well everybody is dealing. Prinergy is becoming more competitive and initiating creative financing. But as a whole, Prinergy is pricy. But well worth it. If you have a good operator_ you will see your return even quicker than most.

[jimbroski]

Well as far as price is concerned you will definetly find rampage more competitive. Prinergy charges for all of their features

[jim_t]

I'm throwing my $.02 on Rampage. My opinions are based on:

Pricing very competitive - Kodak will tell you how cheap Prinergy is by doing a demo with Evo and then when you ask if it can do this or that you'll get the......... ohh you probably want the full blown version (you'll know this when you see the $ signs rolling in their eyes)

Trapping is excellent - is it perfect - no, but then again there is not one single product on the market that is. Also you have to remember our industry is going so software driven that what we as industry professionals rack our brains over our customers half the time aren't even looking at the same thing. Time is money and if you give the customer the option of fine tuning to the nth degree or competitive pricing it's no contest.

Not sure what one poster said about having to make JDF templates to make it work.........you have the option of creating JDF compatible sends but Preps works just fine.

It doesn't matter what rip you go with ....... we'll all be out of business in a few years as digital presses go large format and web to print becomes the norm............ 8O

[monster]

I am currently in discussions about buying a FUJI device, and Rampage. But we use Artpro for a high percentage of our work, and I have a nagging thought telling me that Nexus would automate more of our work.

The comments about RAMpage's problems trapping concern me as well. Any thoughts?

[ajr]

Monster,

I have used Ramapge for 3 years at my last place. Using Delta, Signa etc at my current place, really miss Rampage. Trapping is good, if youre work is very demanding on traps maybe look at something else but for the majority of work its fantastic. Very easy to configure most ops can pick it up very easily. If not sure ask for it on trial you are paying alot of money if it was acar you would take it on a testdrive.

AjR

[packinJP]

OK crew, I have seen post after post banging rampage about their traps. and not many examples on what is wrong. I have been a user since the early nineties and i found rampage's trapping to be flawless. You can control many items in the trapping software. Yes Rampage sees things different then many other apps, but in the end it all works. Just like anything else in our wonderful world of prepress,

A FILE MOST BE PREPARED PROPERLY BEFORE YOU CAN RIP IT!!!

Just because RIP A does things like this and that RIP B might do things a little different.

Rampage was the leader in the industry when it comes to trapping. Are we saying that they reign no more! I find it hard to believe. Speaking with sales reps here in the Northeast USA there are many installs happening!!

I feel in order to make a proper evaluation make sure you understand how things work first!

Don't forget users, Rampage allows Application trap settings to be used or not!

HMMMMMM let me think Quark traps, no,no,no Illustrator knows, no,wait Indesign knows,no, I GOT IT, I'll let PUBLISHER DO IT!!!!


HA HA HA!!!

[quiets525]

I work at a mid-size run facility. We use Rampage. This past month we processed 43,500 pages of 4/c, 2/c, & B/W work through the workflow.