Streamline your prepress with PrimeCenter

Introducing Caldera’s prepress software

PrimeCenter helps prepress operators optimize job preparation for digital printing and cutting.

Automating repetitive prepress tasks brings significant benefits— save time, reduce media usage, and increase your productivity to scale up your entire production.

PrimeCenter

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A more efficient production starts at the prepress stage

PrimeCenter sits upstream of your RIP station.

Schema of Caldera workflow

Orders (or “jobs”) are first submitted to PrimeCenter, either manually, or automatically from a web shop or ERP software.

At this stage, prepress operators can thoroughly prepare their files with a wide range of advanced options— media parameters, preflighting, cut contours, print bleed, margins, nesting, cutter registration marks, annotations, double-sided printing, and more.

Once the files are ready, send ready-to-print & ready-to-cut files to your RIP software to streamline your entire production.

Our customers love PrimeCenter— it’s the missing piece between our prepress workflow solutions and their RIPs and the ideal tool to optimize nesting automatically while preparing cutting operations. Powerful, fast and fully customizable, PrimeCenter is perfect for digital printers who wish to optimize their media usage and fleet of printers.

Hervé Schwertz, Co-manager & Sales Director, Pixel Tech

Streamline your production

Setup an efficient workflow from prepress to production

Being compatible with web shops, RIP software and ERP/MIS solutions makes PrimeCenter a valuable tool for print operations of all sizes. Automate repetitive tasks to save time and increase operator productivity.

Create ready-to-print & ready-to-cut files

Whatever the application, save time by creating custom recipes to prepare, check and fix all your files. From preflighting, cut contours and registration marks to nesting, grommets and double-sided printing, PrimeCenter is the tool to generate ready-to-produce files.

Reduce media waste

Based on cutting-edge technologies, PrimeCenter’s rectangular and true-shape Nesting achieves the best possible layouts to make the most out of your valuable media and reduce your production costs.

Automate your workflow to save time and avoid errors

Wether you need to automate parts or the entirety of your production, PrimeCenter is up to the task. Our prepress solution is available in 3 packages providing different automation levels according to your needs.

Create your own recipes

In PrimeCenter, a recipe is a combination of settings that you can apply to your files to automate file preparation. Create your own recipes from scratch, save and reuse them as many times as necessary to save even more time at the prepress stage.


Create, save and reuse customized recipes	Duplicate and export your recipes to use on other PrimeCenter stations	Run several recipes at the same time

Create, save and reuse customized recipes

Duplicate and export your recipes to use on other PrimeCenter stations

Run several recipes at the same time

INPUT

CHECK & FIX | PREFLIGHT

PRINT BLEED

DOUBLE-SIDED PRINTING

ANNOTATIONS

NESTING

CUTTING

OUTPUT

Start preparing jobs for all print & cut applications

Input in PrimeCenter

Load your files directly in PrimeCenter to start preparing them for printing and cutting.

Supported file formats: PDF, EPS, TIFF, JPEG, PNG, PS & AI

Check the conformity of your files

PrimeCenter embeds the powerful Callas Preflight Engine to ensure you are dealing with compliant PDF files. Check your images, fonts, colors, resolution and transparency to avoid unwanted mistakes and achieve perfect results in production.

After that, various fixups can be applied to modify your files according to your needs (create a cut contour from the page content, crop the page to remove useless white areas, etc).

Add print bleed to your designs

Add print bleed to your canvas or to specific shapes to improve the cutting process. Bleed size can also be customized according to your needs.

Prepare your double-sided files

When preparing double-sided banners or stickers, PrimeCenter automatically generates Side B and places the margins and cutting marks correctly to save time and reduce manual errors.

Double-sided printing has never been easier, both for rectangular and non-rectangular shapes.

You can also prepare double-sided files with different designs on each side.

Anticipate finishing and delivery

Add annotations to your layouts to save time during the finishing and delivery steps.

Annotations include: texts, barcode 39 and optical codes (QR codes).

Say goodbye to media waste

PrimeCenter’s nesting engine beats every manual nesting and achieves the best possible layouts— for both rectangular and more complex shapes.

Generate optimized layouts
Save time and reduce media waste
Achieve a more profitable and sustainable production

Streamline the cutting process

Add cutter registration marks to your layout to prepare the cutting stage.

Customize the shape, size and placement of your marks
Add edge marks or internal cut marks
Keep internal marks only to save even more media

Export ready-to-produce files

Send ready-to-print and ready-to-cut files directly to your RIP software and streamline your entire production.

Automate your production with metadata

Metadata refers to all the information included within the job file— order number, customer’s name, order date, number of copies, printer or media type. Use PrimeCenter to prepare your print & cut files, leverage metadata to save time organizing and filtering your files, and automate other production steps such as finishing and delivery.

UPLOAD JOB INFORMATION WITH XML JOB TICKETS

Web shops and ERP solutions can send XML job tickets with various metadata to PrimeCenter. Once your layouts are done, XML job tickets are exported with the layout information from PrimeCenter to be processed later by third-party applications (RIP and workflow solutions).

GROUP YOUR JOBS AUTOMATICALLY TO SAVE TIME ON PRODUCTION

Ganging is the process of grouping together jobs based on specific metadata (for example, media type or customer’s name). If you submit 3 multi-page PDF files from 2 separate customers, PrimeCenter can use the files’ metadata (here, the customer’s name) to queue the files in separate nests. Save time by letting PrimeCenter sort out your files!

AUTOMATE OUTPUT FILE-NAMING TO EASE FINISHING & DELIVERY

Ease job identification and link prepress to production with coherent file naming to save time throughout your entire production. When exporting both print and cut files from PrimeCenter, the layouts you created can be automatically renamed by using the metadata of your choice.

QUEUE YOUR RECIPES TO SAVE TIME

Once your recipes are configured, manage them from the recipe queue interface and let PrimeCenter run them automatically while you focus on other tasks. Available for PrimeCenter Pro & Max*.

Webshop — Export metadata from your webshop

Ganging in PrimeCenter — Group your files automatically using metadata

Output file naming in PrimeCenter — Automate output file naming using metadata

Zünd table for cutting — Achieve perfect results with a seamless workflow from prepress to production

Prepare your files for all print & cut applications

PrimeCenter applications

Compatibilities

Supported file formats: PDF, EPS, TIFF, JPEG, PNG, PS & AI
Compatible with any RIP software
Compatible with any cutter controller supporting PDF
Full integration with CalderaRIP & Zünd Cut Center
Supported OS: Windows, macOS & Linux Debian

*PrimeCenter Pro can run an unlimited number of semi-automatic recipes. In addition, PrimeCenter Max can run up to 10 fully automatic recipes simultaneously. Note that the 10 fully automatic recipes are shared between the 3 users included in a PrimeCenter Max license.

Get your 15-day free trial

Interested in PrimeCenter? Contact us to get a demo and free trial.

I’m interested in PrimeCenter

Download the PrimeCenter datasheet

Annual subscription plans

PrimeCenter comes in three different packages with different features and automation capabilities to match the needs of your production.

	BASIC	PRO	MAX
AUTOMATION
Manual Import & Export	✓	✓	✓
Auto Import (input hotfolders)		✓	✓
Auto Export (output hotfolders)			✓
Apply Recipe	Manual	Auto	Auto
User interface	1	1	3
HELPDESK
Access to FAQ and ticket submission	✓	✓	✓
Access to dashboard and SLA*		✓	✓
FEATURES
Rectangular and True-Shape Nesting	✓	✓	✓
Canvas and True-Shape Bleeding	✓	✓	✓
Generate Cut Contour	✓	✓	✓
Manual check & fix of input files	✓	✓	✓
Split & re-nest	✓	✓	✓
Grommets	✓	✓	✓
Color under marks	✓	✓	✓
Crop page to design/PDF boxes	✓	✓	✓
Generate crop marks	✓	✓	✓
Trimbox with padding	✓	✓	✓
Annotations (texts, barcode 39, optical code)	✓	✓	✓
Mirroring/Orientation	✓	✓	✓
Extended cut mark options	✓	✓	✓
Ready to print/cut PDF files	✓	✓	✓
Global hotfolder (extract properties from filename)		✓	✓
Recipe queue		✓	✓
Tear-off annotations		✓	✓
Ganging		✓	✓
Extract meta-data from filename		✓	✓
Custom output naming		✓	✓
XML job ticket			✓
Global hotfolder (extract properties from XML)			✓
Automatic export of PDF and cut files			✓
Automatic check & fix of input files		✓	✓
Check & fix of output files		✓	✓

*Service Level Agreement (2h/4h/8h response times depending on the severity of the issue)

Automate your production