What is VDP?

VDP is short for variable data printing, otherwise known as 1:1 printing, personalized printing, and variable digital printing (among other names). Variable data printing means producing customized print materials in large quantities.

Fuga is perfect for VDP, since it can build documents for you automatically in mass quantities, quickly, easily, and with lots of opportunities for customization.

Examples of VDP

Variable data printing campaigns can be individually customized to include the name of the individual, customized content (including pictures), and even custom colors and styling.

VDP in Fuga

Using Fuga, you can transform any InDesign document into a VDP template. This process is generally the same as creating any other dynamic template using Fuga, except that instead of using a flow to build one document at a time, the flow builds the document over and over again, and exports to PDF after each one is built.

How to Use Export to PDF for VDP

Currently Fuga only supports exporting VDP pages as PDF.

To use VDP, create your VDP template (see Setting Up Your VDP Template below), then complete the following steps:

1. Create a Fuga account if you haven’t already by going to http://www.fuga-tech.com/register/.
2. Add money to your account to pay for the pages. Pages are $3.00 for the first thousand, decreasing $0.30 in price for each additional thousand (e.g., $3.00 for the first thousand, $2.70 for the second, $2.40 for the third, and so on).
3. Fill in your Fuga account information on the Licensing tab of the Fuga Preferences panel (Image A). You can open the Preferences panel from the Fuga Hangar or Fuga Workshop panel menus (Image B).
4. For those of you not using a pre-built flow:
   1. Insert the Export PDF action into your flow. This action can be found under the File actions category. In the Export PDF action’s parameters, check the VDP checkbox. For more on how to use this action, see Export PDF in the action reference. Note: The Export PDF action and all the other actions that build the page must be in a loop, this way the page will be built and exported over and over again. You must also have a variable in the PDF file’s name, to make sure that it doesn’t save over itself. See Loops, Variables, and File Paths for more information.
5. Unlock the document if it’s locked (Image C). A document must first be unlocked before exporting as VDP pages. If this command is grayed out your document isn’t locked.
6. Run the flow. You can not export as VDP when playing or stepping through the flow.
7. Click Yes on the confirmation box that appears. You will only be asked for confirmation once for each flow, no matter how many pages you’re exporting.

A. The preferences panel can be found under the Fuga Hangar or Fuga Workshop panel menus.

B. The license tab is where you store your Fuga account information for unlocking pages.

C. To unlock your document, select Unlock from the Fuga Hangar panel menu.

Page Amounts

VDP pages are always charged in multiples of 1000, whether you’re exporting 2 pages, or 20,000 pages.

Can I Use Export PDF Without Paying for VDP?

You can export your document through InDesign or through any of the Export actions at any time, but any pages you modified using a flow will have a watermark on them.

Setting Up Your VDP Template

Setting up a VDP template works the same as setting up any other Fuga template. To get started learning how to setup a Fuga template we recommend being familiar with the concepts in the following articles (also linked to in the sidebar for this page):

• An Introduction to Flows
• Selection and Object Naming
• Variables
• Working With Data In Fuga
• XML Tags
• File Paths
• Loops

VDP vs. Unlock

After modifying or building documents using Fuga, there are two ways to remove the watermark from your exported pages: VDP and unlock. When determining which one you need to use, the best question to ask is if you need the InDesign file for the pages created through the flow. If you do, unlock is your best bet.

The VDP export is for exporting the document as a PDF file within the same flow that it’s generated. Since VDP pages are generated in large quantities at once, we differentiate VDP pages by the fact that they won’t be edited in InDesign after being created.