what are the benefits of using singlab 7?

[Robert Lambie]

good point becky, i would like to know too!
being a big signlab user for many years now.. i would like to find out whats actualy new or is it just more stable?
im stuck fast on signlab 5 rev 12 and dont intend moving… just personal prference really.. glad i did as i have heard lots of glitches in e6, hopefully ignlab will fly the flag again with 7, but with all these patches already on the go its looking ify.. 😕

is anyone running SL7?

[Gordon Forbes]

I recently downloaded an update to rev 6.16and to be fair I dont get a lot of glitches from it anyway. Had a computer freeze today after printing a large file but thankfully it was after all printing was done.
As for eas of use cutting by colour in the cut manager is a boost makes life easy as far as I.m concerend.

Haven’t heard much about Ver 7 at all. and as you said Becky whats the point of going from E6 full pack to Ver 7.

Goop

[Alan Drury]

I have been a longtime user of V5 and decided to move when I bought a new computer with XP Pro. I was after V7 and because that was a little way off E6 was supplied in the meantime. V7 is now used as the main sign production software. From what I understand the main advantage of V7 is the new Cut Manager, I’m not involved with inhouse digital print so can’t tell you advantages, for cutting it is a bit slicker than the old spooler (starts straight away with no lag) although the old spooler is still there. I think the shadow part is brilliant and as an old brush hand this is something I use alot and text to arc is much better. Import filters regarding eps and ai seem similar to E6 with Pantone ref. now showing up, this is better than V5. People going from V5 will see a difference regarding vinyl cutting with the cut manager, cut preview, and replay, those with E6 cutting vinyl only may not see a huge difference – vinyl and print, I don’t know. V7 may not be perfect but nothing is and it is new. Don’t be put off with the patches coming so soon at the very beginning V7 has been VERY stable/fast and to me no less so than V5 (3 ghz – 1 gig ram – 80 gig HD) and it is used all day every day
Overall, very satisfied, glad I changed because I do like it alot better than V5 and that was good, and before anybody says Flexi is better still, well it may or may not be – I’v got too much time and files invested with Signlab to find out, all I know is that Signlab enables me to earn my living and has done since it came out originally.
Alan

[David Evans]

Hello,

Becky,

As a thermal user we have added a load of new features in 7.0, there are a number of improvements

1.Inlay Weld (trapping), can now treat all tints of a spot as one colour and all process as a single colour and some limited trapping with bitmaps and clipping paths.
2. Improved priming (you can now prime any object by tint).
3. New multi spot graduation
4. Better RIP and Queue for managing all print and cut jobs.
5. Enterprise networking support.
6. Raw data viewer, so can view pixel for pixel all print data before output. See trapping, priming as it will actually print.
7. Perforated Window feature, this is for thermal printing on to clear film and you can do double sided or single sided signs with or without perforations. The perforations are fully customisable.
8. PhotoShop channel support

Robert,

We have released two patches for Signlab 7, while they do contain some small fixes, these patches where not released because of bugs, but because we have been rolling out support for new devices mainly in the area of optical registration systems that have been released from Mimaki, Opus, Mutoh etc..

Signlab 7 allows you to do print and cut jobs and mix any of our supported printers and cutters, eg Print on a Mimaki and cut on an Opus. Most of the new cutters have optical registration, which means you need to put down a specific reg marks that the cutter looks for.

We cant support these without a patch in Signlab and we will continue to add support for devices. We have gone to a lot of effort to make sure that Signlab 7 is stable and robust.

Best regards

-David Evans
Cadlink
Printing products manager.