~ variable data printing

Variable Data Printing (VDP), Variable Information Printing (VIP), Personalized printing, Customized printing, Database Publishing, or whatever you want to call it, refers to printing many variations of the same document in one print run.

Usually, people think of targeted marketing when they think of variable data printing. You probably see an example of this every month when you receive your credit-card statement. Do you find advertisements for discounts and special promotions in the envelope with your statement? Most likely, your credit-card company doesn't send the same discounts and promotions to all of their customers. Instead, they analyze their buying histories and send information for specific products, services, promotion to customers that are likely to be interested.

For example:
A certain customer might receive information about discounts and promotions for music, casual clothing, and sports equipment...

...while another customer might receive information about discounts and promotions for jewelry, wines, and fine dining...

...while, yet another customer might receive information about discounts and promotions for computer hardware, computer software, and luxury-vacation packages.

Companies use variable-data-printing systems to print and co-ordinate these customized advertisements. Some simple uses for variable data printing include:

• presonalizing each direct mailer, with their name
• Easily prepare different price lists for your many different distributors
• unique numbering and/or expiration dates

These days, the concept of creating variable-data documents has been extended to non-paper documents such as PDF documents and HTML documents. Variable-data printing can go far beyond printing different names and addresses on a document.