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PrintChef

What is PrintChef?
PrintChef is a printing extension that sits between ANY application and ANY printer driver and reorders, modifies, and enhances the pages that come from the application to give you multi-ups, booklets, watermarks, impositions, variable data & image prints, toner control, serialization, and about anything else you can image in print,,, for EVERY application and EVERY printer. See our online brochure for more details.

PrintChef 		How does PrintChef do it?
PrintChef intercepts the pages produced by an application, and then through "print recipe", modifies how those pages will appear on the printer's paper. PrintChef comes with both a Page Designer and Print Designer so that you can create new page sizes and print recipe to suit whatever printing problems you might have.

PrintChef Pro 		How does PrintChef Pro differ from PrintChef?
PrintChef Pro was designed for the professional or large corporate user. It comes with a 6 seat license out of the box, printer's marks, and you can add PostScript features, associated specifically with your printer to a print recipe-- allowing you to create print recipe that control tray, duplexing, and any other feature that is available for your printer. PrintChef Pro also permits unlimited variable data & image (VDI) printing (whereas PrintChef is limited to 100 records per print). PrintChef Pro also comes with the Tiling Helper, so you can extend your printing to large format mural or banner generation.

Imposition 		How does PrintChef impose pages?
PrintChef can create any imposition imaginable because it uses a page-on-paper Print Designer to create print recipea that control the print at print time. Our Print Designer allows you to stretch, shrink, rotate, skew, and flip the pages and then lay them out 1-up, N-up, as booklets, as multi-layer booklets-- basically anyway that you can imagine. PrintChef works were other programs do not because its operation is not predefined (although several predefined print recipes are part of the installation).

Imposition 		Can PrintChef impose pages from any application?
Yes. PrintChef works were other programs do not because its operation is not predefined and because it operates on pages before they are passed into the printer driver. Also, becaue the application's generated pages remain untouched by PrintChef, there is no dependency on how the application generated the pages.

Watermarks 		Can my own watermarks?
PrintChef's Print Designer allows you to create any layout of watermarks. You can create text or image watermarks, restrict pages they appear on, rotate, skew, scale, or flip them, and even individually colorize them to suit your needs. You can even create a watermark that spans a booklet, crossing the binding!

Two-Sided Prints 		Can I print from-to-back?
Of course. PrintChef accomplishes this by simply restricting the pages to fronts-only or backs-only at print-time, or both for duplex printing. You can also design a print recipe that would print only fronts or only backs. Anything is possible!

Web Printing 		Will PrintChef work with my browser?
PrintChef can change how browsed web pages print just as easily as it can any other application's print. In fact, many people use the automatic booklet feature to create web-output booklets, or mult-ups to print a gallery of web pages. Both save paper and pay for themselves in less than a month of typcial web usage.

PDF Files 		Will PrintChef work with my PDF files?
PrintChef prints PDF files very well and can apply all of its effects to create the look you want. You can even re-distill the PrintChef output file to create distributalble PDF booklets, multiups, or impositions.

Bar Codes 		Can PrintChef produce bar codes?
PrintChef produces bar codes by attaching MindGate Models to a print recipe. When that style is selected, it analyzes the printed output and watches for text that represents a valid bar code (for the attached model). It then replaces the text with the actual bar code image. For example, a zip code 37335-533502 is replaced with the appropriate bar code (and PrintChef generates the checksum digit automatically).

All of MindGate's models are distributed free-of-charge on the web-- making those $400 bar code programs obsolete.

Electronic Signatures 		Can I sign my name on anything that prints?
PrintChef's signature model can substitute the word "signature" with an image of your signature on anything that prints-- including faxes (imagine sending a fax from your computer and having it signed). You can even secure the print recipe so that a password is required (making it impossible for others to sign your name with the print recipe).

Faxes 		Does PrintChef work with faxes?
PrintChef works with imagesetters, printers, photosetters, faxes, plotters, large format printer, and any other output device that uses the standard printing architecture.

Miniatures 		Does PrintChef do miniatures?
PrintChef comes with 6 automatic miniatures that work with any paper size. It also comes with a Page Designer and Print Designer so you can create any page-on-paper layout to produce any miniature configuration.

Labels 		Does PrintChef do labels?
PrintChef can create label sheets, or pin-fed label strips-- to your design! Because PrintChef forces the application printing to treat each label as separate page, and because that label is independent of printer, you will never have to create separate label sheet layouts for different printers. Also, PrintChef can control the printing of labels to a sheet, allowing you to use partial label sheets, or to print from the bottom-up, or to even automatically replicate the labels as needed.

Infinity and Beyond! 		What else can I do?
PrintChef's architecture is the culmination of 8 years of work and refinement and it is designed to work with all printers and all applications. In fact, only PrintChef can claim that it will solve any printing problem you have now or in the future... without reservation!