Flexi is a software package that is designed to be a complete solution for designing, printing, and cutting, typically for sign making. The software also has various applications beyond sign making.
There are two major components to Flexi: Flexi Design and Production Manager. Flexi Design is a robust tool for creating and manipulating shapes, text, and effects. Production manager controls output to a printer or cutter. The two work seamlessly to be an all-in-one solution for designing, printing, and cutting.
The Production Manager is only available to Flexi Subscriptions and FlexiSIGN & PRINT licenses. See Flexi Feature Comparison for more info.
The primary workflow is pretty straight forward:
| Designing Artwork (Flexi Design) |
Print/Cut Setup (RIP and Print) |
Printing and Cutting (Production Manager) |
||
Flexi Design
The Design portion of the software is slanted towards making signs and banners, and therefore has some powerful features for manipulating the following:
- Vector Artwork
- Design Effects such as drop shadows, outlines, distortion, and others
- Text
- Colors, including RGB, CMYK, and LAB
- Vendor Spot Colors including Pantone and dozens of other vendors
- Bitmap
- Path Editing
- Assigning Precise Contour Cut lines
- Preparing Colored Vinyl cuts
And numerous other features.
RIP and Print
The RIP and Print utility exists within Flexi Design to communicate with Production Manager. There exist a couple of other versions of this utility, such as Cut/Plot for only cutting (such as cutting colored vinyl) and Cut Contour for cutting a print and cut job that was printed through another RIP software.
The RIP and Print utility has the following features:
- A visual demonstration displaying how the job will print
- Number of copies and the spacing between each copy
- Job size
- Arrangement on the media
- Color output options
And various other options.
Production Manager
The Production Manager is another software installed side by side with your Flexi Design program. It allows you to manage and control output to your printers and cutters. It includes the following features:
- All the same features as the RIP and Print utility
- Connecting and outputting to printers and cutters
- Managing the settings of your devices
- RIPing your designs (the process by which an image is converted into a language the printer understands)
- Job Nesting to maximize material usage
- Various color management tools
- A color profiler to help you create color profiles (requires a spectrophotometer)
- Simultaneous Printing on up to 5 printers, depending on your License
- Estimating the ink usage of a certain job (only works with certain printers)
And numerous other options. The Production Manager can also be used as a standalone program if you wish to design in other programs. You can import jobs directly into Production Manager without needing to go through Flexi and the RIP & Print utility if you wish.