UK-based Marsh Labels, a family-owned digital label printer in Brighton, is branching out since transitioning its pre-press department to the Packz PDF editor from Hybrid Software.

Packz is a native PDF pre-press production tool designed for labels and packaging applications. At Marsh Labels, Packz is facilitating production of labels on HP Indigo digital presses, as Gary Burnley, the printer’s joint managing director, explained.

‘We run two HP Indigo presses, a 6900 and a 6800, plus four AB Graphic Digicons, and a new peel and reveal machine. We take in lots of short runs and provide the repro to put the files together. In the past a 500-1000 label run has taken longer to repro than to print. Packz has improved turnaround time significantly so that we have more capacity to take in more work. It’s giving us the confidence to branch out into another line of work.’

Marsh Labels takes on about 20,000 new label jobs each year, providing digital capacity for other print shops around the UK. It print labels for beverage, pharmaceutical, retail, cosmetic, healthcare, food, beverage, security and industrial applications.

Marsh Labels pre-press manager Leigh Howe said, ‘Packz is head and shoulders over any other software I’ve used and I’ve been in the business for more than 20 years. It has a great feel to it and Hyrid Software is constantly driving it forward. They listen to people like us who’ve got a few ideas and the next thing you know, you see an update with that feature in it.

Mr Howe added, ‘It’s native PDF so the job stays in PDF through pre-press so there are no conversions that can slow things down and clutter up the file server.’

The number of variable data (VDP) jobs has doubled over the past year, noted Mr Howe. This is largely through barcodes and numbering but because there is a VDP module inside Packz, the printer’s pre-press department can work on a customer supplied PDF file from start to finish. This cuts out unnecessary steps such as importing the file into another application and then exporting the file again.

‘It’s very efficient,’ continued Mr Howe. ‘And I’m much more confident that what I see on the proof is correct than I ever was before because: Packz reduces the risk of human error; dimensions of crop boxes are computer generated rather than drawn manually; editing and sharing the colour books is simple and no longer a manual process; there’s bar code recognition that is computer generated from the incoming file.

‘All these features take seconds off each part of the checking process. Multiply that up and already the number of jobs we process per day has gone up and the only thing we’ve changed is to move to Packz.

‘The transition to Packz only took us about a week. It was like getting used to the feel of a new car. Second nature after only a few days.’

Marsh Label started out in 1983 when Gary’s father Barrie Burnley set up the company with Ron Marsh. Gary Burnley and his sister, Alison Murphy, took over the company when their father retired. The company currently employs around 20 staff with a pre-press team of five.

Marsh Labels is also a member of the Digital Labels & Packaging Industry Group, alongside the likes of Ultimate Digital, CS Labels, Bristol Labels and Olympus Print Group. Contact Chloe WardB for more information and to join the group.