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What’s New in PACKZ 4.0

Copyright© 2016, PACKZ Software GmbH. All rights reserved. This document may not be
copied, photocopied, reproduced, translated, or converted to any electronic or machine-
readable form in whole or in part without written approval from PACKZ Software GmbH.
What’s New in PACKZ 4.0

The PACKZ Software team is pleased to announce the release of PACKZ 4.0.
With a new version also new features are introduced. PACKZ Software listens to the market needs, the daily worries
and the reality in the graphical industry. Requested features from users are added to PACKZ 4.0, turning worries into
valuable solutions.

PACKZ work environment

Menu ________________________________________________________________________________
• In the File menu the Insert/Place and Export functions are gathered:

• A new menu is added, named Paint, containing some new functions as well as functions that were
previously located in the Prepress menu, such as: Clip Image Paint, Downsample Images…, Convert Colors,
Convert to and Resolve Invisible Paints.

• In the Assets palette, the screening tab has been removed and added to the Output tab. The curves section
has been removed from the Output tab and is now available as a separate option in the Window menu:

Toolbar ______________________________________________________________________________
• When using multiple monitors, the Customize Toolbar menu contains a Position option where you can
choose on which screen the toolbar will be shown.

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 • The Toolbar can be extended with the Smart Ribbon by enabling this option in the Window menu. The
Smart Ribbon contains information depending on the current selection and some options to edit certain
parameters.

Document Window_____________________________________________________________________

The Selection behavior indicator in the indication bar shows the current Selection Marquee behavior as defined in
the Preferences palette (Editing tab: Selection: Behavior drop-down).
By clicking on this indicator you can switch between the two behaviors without going to the Preferences.

Palettes ______________________________________________________________________________
• The Page Boxes palette is removed from the Window menu. Instead an extra Page Boxes tab is added in
the Assets palette.

• All palettes accessible via the Window menu can be gathered and docked in the Palette Dock (previously
Reserved Palette Area palette) by dropping them onto the Palette Dock while pressing the ⌥ key () or
alt key (ÿ).

Preferences

On startup PACKZ will check if the User Application Data folder and the Preferences and Workspaces files are
writable. The Shared Application Data folder will be checked on readability. In case one of the files or folders does
not have the correct permissions, a warning is shown.

General: File __________________________________________________________________________

On Document Save
• Create backup file
By default saving a file automatically creates a backup file of the previous session’s PDF. Disabling this
checkbox prevents the creation of a backup file.

• Launch Analyze Preset allows applying an Analyze and Fix when saving a document.

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 • The Incremental Save checkbox is replaced by a drop-down, allowing you to choose between the
following:
- Always
- Never
- Always, Except Repetitions

General: Behavior ______________________________________________________________________

• Place Station: The lower left corner of the chosen/defined area is placed in the top right quadrant of the
Ruler’s origin, irrespective of the Ruler's visibility.

• Confirm deleting of used layers

Preferences: Editing ____________________________________________________________________

• The Length drop-down contains a new entry: Pixels. On the right side of this drop-down the resolution
can be set in the Resolution for Pixels input field.

• Ruler Horizontal / Vertical Step

• Image Replace
- Resolution
When selecting Preserve the resolution remains unchanged after replacing the image with another one,
while Fit will fit the replaced image to the bounding box sizes of the previous image.

- Clipping path
The clipping path will remain unchanged after replacing the image when Preserve is defined as setting.
Reload can be chosen if the clipping path needs to be updated by the replaced images.

Preferences: Key Bindings _______________________________________________________________

Workspaces can also be defined as short cuts in the Key Bindings tab of the Preferences. There, workspaces are
listed as ‘Workspace 1’, ‘Workspace 2’… where the items correspond to the first, second… workspace as shown in
the Workspace menu.

Preferences: Convert ___________________________________________________________________

• Noise can be applied in certain ranges, between certain percentages (Apply from ‘xx’ to ‘xx’ and from ‘xx’ to
‘xx’).

• In the Extended Data drop-down you can choose between:

- Closest: The closest pixels on the edge will be cloned, filling up the spread distance.
- Blurred: The closest pixels on the edge will be cloned and then blurred (softened) with the nearby pixels
in the spread distance.

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File menu

Export: Gravure… ______________________________________________________________________

• Mode
The Mode drop-down contains:
- TIFF Composite
- TIFF Separated
- OHIO Separated: will export a multipage PostScript file with one image on each page and can be sent to
an OHIO Collage system.

• Compression
The Compression drop-down gives you the option to choose between three compression modes:
- None
- PackBits
- LZW

• Fast Forward Data

The Fast Forward Data checkbox will result in an extra .svs file, with the same name as the tiff name. This
option works for both composite and separated output.

Export: CIP ____________________________________________________________________________

A Transform function and Separation list is added to the parameter sheet:

Save to Device _________________________________________________________________________

• Remove Nested Layers checkbox.
This option will skip the output of layers that are nested inside other layers. Files containing this kind of
structures may cause a failure of refinement in Prinergy.

• Preserve Metadata checkbox.

Print _________________________________________________________________________________
( only) The scaling selected in the Print dialog (Fit to Page / Scale Down Only) is now honoured.

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Edit menu

Copy Paint ____________________________________________________________________________

Selecting an object and clicking the Copy Paint option will copy the selected paint to the Paint Clipboard, based on
the Copy / Paste fill or stroke paint button in the Toolbar.

Paste Paint ____________________________________________________________________________

The current paint in the Paint Clipboard will be copied to the fill or stroke of the selected objects, depending on the
active Copy / Paste fill or stroke paint button in the Toolbar.

Object menu

Fit Curves _____________________________________________________________________________

The Fit Curves function in the Object menu, Path’s side menu will try to fit Bezier curves to straight corners of a path.
This can come in handy after vectorizing a curved shaped image. Therefor this option can also be found in the
Simplify: Vectorize Images palette and the Smoothen Path palette.

Paint menu

Convert Colors ________________________________________________________________________

• When hovering over a separation name a tooltip appears showing the Lab values of the separation. In case
of a GMG connection also the Lab values as described in the GMG profile and the destination values will be
shown:

• If the separation does not need to be converted, then Do Not Convert can be selected from the drop-down
or another separation can be chosen from the list.

Spread Paint __________________________________________________________________________

With the Spread Paint option you can extend the paint of the selected objects. This allows you to create extra bleed
information outside a (clipping path), though it is also possible to extend the object at the same time as well. The
original path of the object is always used as a basis for the spread function.

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Fit Object Path to Paint _________________________________________________________________
With the Fit Object Path to Paint function the path of the selected object will be adjusted to the paint’s boundaries.
This will mainly be used in case of images in a clipping path.

Force Black Overprint ___________________________________________________________________

The Force Black Overprint option sets all flat paint containing only 100% of the Black separation to overprint.

Force Overprint… ______________________________________________________________________

Clicking the Force Overprint… menu entry opens a dialog where you can define some parameters in order to force
certain objects to be set on overprint:

Prepress menu

White Underprint ______________________________________________________________________

Method
The Method drop-down lets you choose between Overprint and Blend Mode. Overprint will create the white
underprint object in overprint mode, while Blend Mode will put the object in blend modes Darken (adding) or
Lighten (subtracting).

Window menu

Hide PACKZ ___________________________________________________________________________

(ÿ only) Hide PACKZ will hide all PACKZ windows, including the Toolbar. All the windows will reappear when you
click the PACKZ icon in the taskbar.

Analyze and Fix ________________________________________________________________________

• In case of a multipage PDF the Analyze button drop-down can be pressed to have the Analyze All Pages
function.

• Analyze and Fix will only be performed on visible objects. Objects that are hidden will be ignored.

• The following criteria is added:

- Pattern Paints will check for objects with a pattern as paint.
- Mixed Paint Barcodes will check for objects with a pattern as paint.
- Distortion will check if distortion is applied and will show the direction and value in the
corresponding collection.
- Subset Fonts will check for subset fonts.
- Knockout Black Text will gather text that has a fill paint of 100% Black. Additionally a Max. Size
button and input field allows you to limit the conversion to overprint up till u certain font size.
- Lab Objects will search for objects in Lab color space. With the Convert to CMYK button active Lab
objects will be converted to CMYK.
- Registration Objects will search for objects in registration paint. With the Convert to Separated
button enabled, registration objects will get a Separated modus paint.
- Different Profiles with Same Name will search for profiles with the same name (case insensitive) and
then checks if the profiles are binary equal.
With the Resolve button enabled, profiles with the same name will be replaced with the first one that
was encountered in the document.
- Screened Objects will look for objects containing screening. The collection will list the matching
items with the screening name.

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Assets: Separations_____________________________________________________________________
• Order
Order shows the index of the separation and is updated automatically when adding, removing or
moving separations. You can edit this indexing after you have enabled the Enable Custom Separations
Index option in the action drop-down menu or contextual menu.

• With the checkboxes in the eye column you can define whether or not the separation should be taken
into account when applying marks (Live Objects).

• The name of the darkest color is shown in bold, based on the separation with the smallest L value
(Automatic Darkest Color). It is possible to change the darkest color tag to another separation. When
selecting Set Darkest Color from the action drop-down or contextual menu, the selected separation is
now set as darkest color.

• The total and the maximum ink coverage are shown in a tooltip that appears when you hover over the
header of the Ink Coverage columns.

Assets: PDF Layers _____________________________________________________________________

• Objects such as cut lines, legends and dimensions, are metadata in a PDF that will not be used for output,
though they are part of a file. They are called Processing Step Data as they can be used in an additional
processing step after or before printing like cutting, applying varnish or White Underprint. Mainly these
kinds of objects are stored in layers.
With the Group and Type columns different layers can be defined and categorized confirm to a
standardized way.

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 • The - button at the bottom left of the palette lets you delete the highlighted PDF layer.

Assets: Images _________________________________________________________________________

The Reload all images from page / from file button will only reload the images that have a warning indicator.

Assets: Barcodes _______________________________________________________________________

• An exclamation mark might be there to indicate the barcode has been scaled or sheared with the
Transform options.

• An Update button has been added to the Edit Barcode sheet and will thus only visible when editing a
barcode, not when creating one.

• In the settings of the GS1 Databar Omnidirectional:

- Custom Height has been removed,
- Composite Component input field has been added.

Assets: Screenings _____________________________________________________________________

The Screenings section in the Assets palette has a Curve column that will show the name of the curve in a screening
set if there is any.

When creating or editing a screening set, the curve can be selected from a drop-down:

Save As Template
A screening set can be saved as a template via the corresponding option in the action drop-down.

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Assets: Output_________________________________________________________________________
Distortion

A K-Factor can be entered in the K input fields. The K-Factor (or also called the ‘thicK-Factor’) defines the thickness
of the plate and the mounting tape.

Create Shape __________________________________________________________________________

Rounded Rectangle has been replaced by Fringed Rectangle, allowing you to choose between:
- rounded,
- beveled,
- clipped,
- or stamp corners.

Dimension Arrows _____________________________________________________________________

Dimension Arrows controls how the arrows are created when creating dimension lines via the Dimensions palette.

Dimensions ___________________________________________________________________________
With the Dimensions palette, dimension lines, guidelines and the dimension values can be applied to a document
containing artwork for a bag. These dimensions are placed according to a reference box and are based on a certain
type of bag. The bag divisions will automatically take the sizes of the reference box into account when they are
being defined.

• Global Settings section: you can define the reference box and the position of the dimension lines within
the reference box.

• Bag section: A predefined parameterized type of bag can be selected from the Type drop-down list. You
can extend this list by adding your own custom bags.

• Horizontal / Vertical Divisions section: Based on the type of bag selected from the Type drop-down and the
length (the width or height of the reference box), the divisions for the specified orientation are calculated
from the parameters in the Bag section and displayed here.

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 When clicking the Create button, a dimension line, value and dashed line is created for each defined
division. The look of the dimension lines can be defined in the Dimension Arrows palette.

Object Tree ___________________________________________________________________________

Layers containing locked objects cannot be removed. A message appears when trying to remove layers containing
locked objects: “Layer ‘xxx’ can’t be removed because it contains locked objects.”

Paint: Shading _________________________________________________________________________

An exclamation mark may appear when selecting a (multistep) gradation of a sub type of Type 2 or Type 3, to
indicate the shading values are a representation. Modifying the values will turn the shading into an axial or radial
shading (Type 2 or 3 shading).

Simplify – Round Corners _______________________________________________________________

Entering a value in the Radius input field and pressing the Round button will convert the corner points of a path or
sub path to a round corner.

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Swatches _____________________________________________________________________________
With the Swatches palette you can create and manage libraries with custom flat paints and apply these paints
(swatches) to objects.

Creating swatches libraries:

1. Click on the Create… option in the Library drop-down.
2. Enter the name of the new library in the Library Name input field.
3. Click the Create button.
4. Select the object from which you want to save the paint color as a swatch.
5. Choose which paint should be added as a swatch by clicking the Copy/Paste fill paint or Copy/Paste stroke
paint button.
6. Click the + button
Applying swatches:
1. Select the object on which you want to apply a swatch.
2. Define where the swatch paint should be applied, by clicking the Copy/Paste fill paint or Copy/Paste stroke
paint button.
3. Double-click on a swatch.

Transform ____________________________________________________________________________
Transforming a recognized barcode by shearing or scaling will result in:
- a message: “Transformed barcode may no longer meet specifications”
- an exclamation mark in the barcode thumbnail in the Assets palette (Barcodes)

View Options __________________________________________________________________________

• Hide / Show Selection Rectangle will show/hide a selection rectangle when selecting with the Select Tool.
The reference points are indicated by small circles (whereas the Transform Tool will show small rectangles).

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 • The Back Intensity slider lets you change the color of the background of the document. If the slider is set to
anything higher than 0% the rendering will be done as if there is a big object in the background, in
registration color in the slider’s percentage.
With this function you can detect any overprints or transparencies to the background.

View Options: Outline __________________________________________________________________

Visualize images shows a cross inside the path of an image.

View Options: Differences _______________________________________________________________

Match Selection, in the Align drop-down, will use the center of the bounding boxes of the selection to align both
documents. In case there is no selection the Media Box will be used.

View Options: Misregistration ____________________________________________________________

Next to each of the separations a checkbox can be disabled to not include the separation in the misregistration
simulations.

Edit Path Tool _________________________________________________________________________

The coordinates of the selected anchor point will be shown in the Smart Ribbon. In case multiple anchor points are
selected it will show the coordinates of the chosen reference point of the selection’s bounding box.

Trapping

After trapping automatically, trap collections are generated. Now identical trapping pairs are grouped within the
collections:

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Trap Presets __________________________________________________________________________

• Modifying, removing or adding a parameter of a Trap Preset, will result in an exclamation mark informing
the operator that the current parameters shown are different than the saved preset. Clicking this indicator
will reset the preset to its saved state.
By pressing the Save Preset button these changes can be saved to the preset.

• The Truncate on center / Truncate on edge segmented button will reduce the trap to half of the trap distance
when the Trap is getting too close to another object or will adjust the trap shape to the edge of the other
object.

• With the Trap Layer drop-down you can push the Trap Layer to another position in the object tree
hierarchy:
- On Top
- Between Layers
- Anywhere

• The different options in the Pull Backs drop-down are renamed to:
- Allow All
- Flat Parts
- 100% Black Flat Parts
- None

• The Trapping Method drop-down shows Smart and Traditional.

With Smart traps will only be created when they really improve the situation so when the created trap is
less visible than the maximum possible misregistration without a trap.
Traditional means that always a trap is created in case of misregistration, even when the traps are more
visible than the maximum misregistration.

• Allow Object Dependent Traps will generate traps following the incoming edges.

Trap Properties ________________________________________________________________________

• The Ends segmented button lets you define Square trap ends or Object dependent trap ends.

• The value generated by the Trapper can be overwritten when double-clicking on

Automatic and entering a value. A U appears to indicate the operator’s intervention.

• Trap selection button

The selected trap edges will be trapped with the active trap preset

• The Invert trap direction button will invert

the direction of the selected traps.

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Step and Repeat

• The Paper Size setup has a drop-down with a list extracted from the PaperSize.json file (Application Data
folder).

• When saving a repetition, the default location to save will be the same as the station files.

• The different Step and Repeat palettes and the Grid Imposition now also have Create Tumble and Create
Rotate 180º option in the Station section.

• In case the CFF2 file was originally imported with all information (Import CFF2), then the mirrored, tumbled
or rotated repetition will also include all structural layers of the original repetition in a separate layer
named ‘Structure’.

• When the page boxes are manually adjusted via the Page Boxes tab of the Assets palette, a message
appears in the General Settings of the Step and Repeat palette:

Nested Step and Repeat ________________________________________________________________

A Mirror station content horizontally and Mirror station content vertically has been added to the Repetition settings.

Tabular Step and Repeat ________________________________________________________________

• The Calculate Ganging button calculates automatic ganging and is mainly used for round labels. When
clicked, a sheet appears to enter the distance between the ganged labels.

• Include partial one ups is available when Add extra station to Odd / Even columns / rows is used. It will add
partial labels to the step and repeat to avoid ink coverage instabilities.

• When a seamless repetition is created under a certain angle, a Cut Stations drop-down is available to
prevent having partial labels:
- Leave as is
- Unify at Top
- Unify at Bottom
- Unify at Left
- Unify at Right

Partial labels at the bottom, top, left or right of the repetition will be repositioned to the opposite side of
the repetition, matching the partial labels over there.

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 Additionally a cutline is added around the seamless step and repeat, with a hairline stroke, in a newly
created technical separation named ‘Repetition Cutline’, in overprint mode and in a newly created sub
layer ‘Repetition Cutline’.

• When moving a Step and Repeat block an error appears: “Transforming a tabular step and repeat is not
allowed: the repetition was released (use interactive step and repeat if you want to transform interactively.”
The same applies on Grid Impositions.

Interactive Step and Repeat _____________________________________________________________

The action drop-down in the Station section contains Transparent Station. When enabled, all the stations in the
repetition are placed in darken mode, allowing bleed in overstepping blocks.

Staggered Cutting _____________________________________________________________________

With the Staggered Cutting function repetitions can be mounted on a cylinder in a seamless way simply by
positioning the seam in between the printable objects. A path, called a staggered cut, defines this seam and can be
exported to a CFF2 file for use on a cutting table.
A staggered cut path can be created:
- from any open path,
- automatically.
When a path is selected, the path will be converted to a Staggered Cut when clicking the Create button.
When no path is selected, the Staggered Cut will be created automatically, applying a ‘best fit’ path that will follow
the top row stations. When the Staggered Cut should start on a row different than the top one, a small line segment
should be created.

Staggered cutting paths can be created for all separations at once or for each separation separately by enabling /
disabling separation in the separation list.

Insert Cutting Path in Normalized PDF ____________________________________________________

Staggered Cut paths created by PACKZ can be added to a Normalized PDF. Clicking this option will open a Browser
window where the Normalized PDF can be selected. The Staggered Cut information is injected into the Normalized
PDF. So when the file is ripped by the FlexRIP or the Imaging Engine, the path is also copied into the LEN file so it
can be picked up by the Digital Flexo Suite to export to an ACM format.

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3D Models

Creating a 3D Model ____________________________________________________________________

Save screenshot will save a screenshot in jpg format from the 3D Model. The resolution of the screenshot depends
on the 3D window size.

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