LineUp: General Help
Table of Contents
General Overview
DOWNLOAD RTF TO SEE PROPER STYLING
Lineup is a tool that simplifies the process of taking an order (from the front office) and getting it through to production.
User Story
Stock is running low for #3139 “Who Wrote Our Hymns”. The inventory taker notices and informs John. John knows that it’s a product that we produce in house, and so adds a new row to Lineup with the item number. Lineup looks up the item number (from UV or SQL) and adds the title to the row. John then adds the quantity needed.
Stephen then sees that there’s an order for a book and can see quantity needed. He selects the row / a cell in the row, and right clicks. Hopefully there are 2 production files ready to go.
(What to do from here depends on the exact needs. I’ll try and be complete-ish.)
Option 1
Stephen right clicks on the selected cell, and under production, clicks “Export Files To Printers”. Lineup copies the files to all the appropriate hot folders for all of the appropriate types of printer. (ie if it’s a book body, copies it to the book printer folder for the 6120 and 1200b) If there are no hot folders found (ie book cover) it copies the production file to stephen’s desktop.
Lineup then gives Stephen a prompt to see if he wishes to print the job ticket. If he does, it will print out on the label printer in the qp room.
Stephen will then need to import the cover in the fiery manager, and assign the correct specs. (Check the production manual for details.)
The body job will need to be recalled on the desired printer. Check the job ticket for quantities and paper type/weight.
Option 2
Stephen selects the job row / cell, and navigates to the production tab inside lineup. It shows the production files, along with the paper types and number of layers to print.
The default printer can be set before printing. This may help find the correct printer. Check the section called “Set Default Printer in Lineup” if more help is needed.
I find that printing from inside edge (the built in pdf viewer in lineup) can sometimes mess with the front to back page alignment. Click on the blue link above each pdf to open the pdf in your default viewer (acrobat) and print from there.
Once printing has started, or a job status needs to be changed. Stephen updates the job status on the Job Queue tab. There are multiple rules defining the color of the status.
• Not Started = Red
• Ing = green. (printing, binding, etc)
• Waiting = yellow. (this is applied after the ing rule. Anything that is both ing and waiting will be yellow)
• zDone = done. Setting this will move the job to archive and send an email.
Tools Menu
DOWNLOAD RTF TO SEE PROPER STYLING
Create Barcode Labels & Create Barcode Images
These are more of a legacy functionality. Lineup would have ideally been able to function with barcodes, but I was never able to make it work cleanly. Creating labels would match a unique barcode to the longer text the barcode represented. Create Images would let you create a range of numeric barcodes (say for inventory scanning purposes)
Tract Preview
This useful tool previews tracts & is an easy way to stage the tracts before InDesign PrePress. When laying out tracts, the darkest / highest ink coverage tracts should be closest to the color bars. Having a dark image at the end helps make sure that all of the ink isn’t taken for a lighter tract.
FYI: The color bars are at the back end of the sheet (the last part of the sheet through the press.) The color bars have patterns that show if there is enough ink left on the rollers after having inked the sheet.
To use:
Add all the tracts in (via item number) at the top left of the page.
ie. Add an item number and hit enter
Right click on the panel on the right, and click ‘Sort Items’
If there are still images waiting to scan, just wait till they’re done
It will sort from darkest to lightest tract.
Open the correct InDesign tract template from this folder:
X:\Production\Tracts\Imposition
In Tract Previewer, double click on one tract at a time (to copy file path), and in InDesign, relink desired tract, and paste copied file path.
Repeat for all.
Note. If it errors out ... find the tract manually 😊
These are the same set of tracts. The first is unsorted, the second is sorted.
Create Lineup Backup
This creates an xml file that could potentially be used to re-create the lineup sql database. It automatically runs ... every week? Running this function will show where it created the backup.
Lineup Imposition (YCC, BGC, CDC, Mini-Pamphlets ... )
Open the tools menu, and click ‘Impose Book/Pam/Etc.’
This form is comprised of two main functions. One is to search project folders for a title/keyword/item number. (Separate searches by semicolon) The other is to impose a pdf x up.
Note, these instructions depend on having a pdf (not an InDesign file) to work with.
Click Select PDF, navigate to the product’s project folder, and click on the exported pdf of the body.
Select the correct radio button.
Click ‘Save PDF As”, and save it to the correct production folder
(for calendars: Compare new pdf to last year’s pdf to make sure imposition is correct.)
Impose Design ID
This will impose a design from the website. Select the correct design type, and enter the ID. Then Impose.
Impose Home Print Tracts & Web Pics
This creates some of the files necessary for web. Including web pics, home print (a4 + letter) pdf’s. I believe it exports them to X:\Web\Products\2 New and Updated Pics. Read the prompts for help.
At the top, specify the folder to search through (including subfolders) for final .indd files.
Check each tract file you wish to create web files for.
Click OK.
Get GP Emails From Folder Names
This will return a list of all subfolder names in a txt file. (saved to where you specify) This can be useful when creating reminder emails for GP Customers.
Share Word Utilities
I recommend against using these unless you’re looking at the code. It may work fine ... ? It was created several years ago and is in connection with migrating John’s shareword files out of his documents folder, and into the specific shareword project folder. It connects to msword, and opens each document, and searches for all(?) product numbers. Sometimes it mis-finds a product (think 1918)
Book Cover Manager
This one has buggs. Don’t open 😊. It was designed to manage the transition between old style covers, and new style covers from MechGens. I think I may publish a new version with it removed.
Print TC Files
Useful in copying the addressed TC to a hot folder. (copies them 1 at a time, with a pause between each copy to keep them in order) Check the TC Manual for more details.
Logs Menu
Supplies Purchasing History & Computer Software Licensing
These both point to files in the resources folder: X:\Computer\BTP Programs\LineUp\Resources\
The supplies one keeps track of paper, ink, cd’s, etc.
The Computer Software Licensing keeps a record of software license keys.
Error Log ...
Not really used, but it maaaay? Be useful tracking down errors.
Email Notification log
Shows a record of notification emails sent. (end of week email, and unresolved proof request emails)
Share Word Manager
This helps keep John / the shareword folder organized ...
Set Default Printer in Lineup
To Set the default printer in Lineup, click the blue ‘Set Default Printer’ button in the top menu bar.
It will show a list of printer queue options, arranged by physical printer. Clicking on one of the blue (or green) buttons will set that printer q as default. This makes finding the correct printer in a list of options easier. It’s also useful/necessary when printing the addressed TC envelopes.
Edit Printers in Lineup
To add / remove printers, or add / remove printer queues.
Open Lineup, and click the blue “Set Default Printer” or open File > Settings > Printers tab
Each physical printer can have multiple queues. (book/pamphlet/envelope/etc)
Each queue can have a hot folder associated with it.
Production of Books, Pamphlets, TC
In lineup, click the line item that has the book. It should populate with the correct info (title, author, etc.) at the bottom of the screen. Then click the production tab at the top. It should load the cover on one side, and the body on the other.
Set the default printer (as shown below) for bodies & again for covers.
Print the correct number of layers need for the quantity. Layer count should show at the top of the screen, but if it doesn’t, I like to print 10% extra, (limited to 50 extra copies). If I need 50 books, and they’re printed 4 up, and covers are 2 up, the math would look something like this:
Bod: (50*1.1)/4 = 13.75. So 14 layers needed.
Cov: (50*1.1)/2 = 27.5. So 28 layers needed. Note: If an odd number are needed, I like to print an extra so that it’s an even number to get laminated. (Book covers get laminated 2 sheets at a time)
Cover paper defaults:
• Book: 100lb cover, White, 12x18, glossy
• Pamphlet: 80lb cover, White, 12x18, glossy
• TC Overseas: 80lb text, White, 12x18 glossy
Book Body paper defaults:
11x17 paper, with the following weights depending on page count.
• 1-75pgs = 32lb
• 76-199pgs = 24lb
• 200-449pgs = 20lb
• 450+pgs = 16lb