The release, announced at the AIIM On Demand show in the US last week, follows the launch of Fujifilm’s
APPE-based cross-media workflow, XMF.

Kodak said Prinergy 4, which features both Adobe’s CPSI and newer APPE RIP, will enable printers to choose on a job-by-job basis, which RIP they want to use.

Kodak GCG product marketing manager Matthieu Bossan said: “Printers can use the CPSI version if they want to reprint an old job in exactly the same way, but we’d expect all new jobs to use APPE.”

Kodak said Prinergy 4, which features APPE’s full transparency support, will enable printers to preserve transparency throughout the workflow. Color Matcher and Trapper features have also been upgraded to handle transparent objects.

Prinergy 4 also features new digital job notes and dashboard features, designed to provide greater control and ‘at a glance’ job information, as well as enhanced rules-based automation.

Tim Staut, workflow/production manager at US-based user Southern Graphic Systems, added: “With native transparency support in Prinergy 4, we can now process more files in less time, with more accuracy, because files can come straight from front-end applications and can be refined and trapped without flattening, saving approximately 35 to 40% of the time from the process.”

Prinergy 4 is immediately available for all markets, including commercial, packaging and newspaper printers. However, existing Prinergy users hoping to upgrade will have to wait until next month.