Earlier this year at the LexJet Blog we featured a demonstration video about Onyx SmartApps Sign & Banner Pro. As a follow-up we recently spoke with a user of the Onyx plug-in to see if it was as helpful in production as advertised.

Eduardo Vega, production manager at Adage Graphics in El Segundo, Calif., verifies that the plug-in not only does what it’s supposed to do, “the software has been a life saver,” Vega says.

“We’ve had it for about a year and it’s been especially helpful for putting grommet marks on banners. What used to take hours when we had a lot of large banners to produce and mark for grommets now takes minutes,” Vega explains. “Also, for canvas wraps we were using Genuine Fractals to set up the mirrored borders on the wraps. That was also very time-consuming to go through all the steps in the software. Now with the Sign & Banner Pro it only takes like three seconds.”

Vega reports that they also use the plug-in to send files to the company’s Zund cutter. “This way we don’t have to create a different dialogue for files we’re sending to the cutter,” adds Vega.

Adage Graphics has a range of printers – including HP Z6100s, an HP solvent printer and an HP L25500 latex printer – so this useful tool has gotten quite a workout.

By the way, Onyx has extended its March promotions on trade-ins and upgrades to the latest version of Onyx PosterShop and ProductionHouse. To find out what those deals are, exactly, click here. The deadline for these deals has been extended until March 31.

Also, click here to see a demonstration video of PitStop Pro, a plug-in for Adobe Acrobat from Onyx that helps optimize productivity by identifying and eliminating PDF issues prior to production.

PitStop Pro corrects a variety of common problems like missing fonts, drop shadows and incorrect colors right from Acrobat. The end result is better time management and less waste.