Variable printing is a more flexible way to print information that involves changing items such as text, graphics and images from one printed piece to the next piece without having to stop the printing process to make those changes.

A basic example of variable printing involves using a different name and address on a letter that contains the same layout or text information.

Variable print is used in direct mail marketing, customer relation management, and billing or invoicing.

There are many different aspects of variable printing. Changing just the salutation or name on each letter or piece is a basic form of variable printing. This adds a personal touch to your standardized message.

Some of the more complex uses for variable printing uses ‘versioning’, where there may be differing amounts of customization for different markets, with text and images changing for groups of addresses based upon which segment of the market is being addressed.

For example, the insurance industry needs to send information to their policy holders who may have car, homeowner, life, and health insurance policies. With variable data expertise, each group of policy owners can be included in one mailing while still providing different information to each group.

Full variable printing is where the text and images can be altered for each individual address. The banking industry would use this type of printing when mailing out bank statements to their customers. Every statement would have unique or customized data. Businesses that print and mail customer invoices or statements would also tend to use full variable printing.

Pulling data from various database sources and combining them into a usable file is required on variable print jobs. Sometimes, this is not always the easiest thing to do, depending on the formats of the files being merged.

Here at JWM Business Services, we have become experts at providing the technology needed to gather data from multiple sources and/or multiple data fields then merge them into various applications for customized output. We have a staff of programmers to aid us in creating innovative solutions to our customers evolving data management needs.