Amgraf MECCA User Group Meeting from Year 2000

2000 User Group Notes and Presentations

Report on 11th Annual MECCA User Group Meeting
February 9-11, 2000
Las Vegas, NV

Amgraf's MECCA 2000 Integrated Electronic Publishing System is the leading business forms composition workstation for the forms manufacturing industry. June Garrett, PrePress Supervisor for Corporate Express Document and Print Management, in Tulsa, hosted the Eleventh MECCA User Group Meeting. It was held in February at the spectacular Golden Nugget Hotel in Las Vegas and was a definite winner.

The three day schedule was packed with guest speakers, mini-training sessions, networking breaks, and was a first-time experience for more than half of those attending. The meetings were invigorating and the evenings full of fun and adventure.

Guest speaker Franklin J. Garner, III of Amgraf, Inc. opened the meeting with a presentation on Automating the Forms Plant with Amgraf Technology 2000 which demonstrated how Amgraf's software products merge together to make a seamless production flow from order entry to customer proofing.

June Garrett of Corporate Express gave an insightful presentation on Streamlining EPS Output through Journal Files which has become a time-saving and cost effective method for handling their stationery orders received from the Internet.

And since MECCA's are not the only systems and software in the composition environment there were topics such as "Networking MECCA with PCs and MACs", "Converting EPS Files" and Robert Penn of Hudson Integrated Products gave a very informative presentation Using Speech-to-Text and OCR Technology for Backers demonstrating how his department scans, spell checks, and proof-reads complex legal documents and backers with the help of the latest technology.

On day two each presentation demonstrated how to use MECCA Systems more efficiently, such as June Garrett's MECCA III - A Good Fit for Computer to Plate. June's success in switching from traditional printing to CTP was shared with the group and received great interest. Factors she had to take into consideration were kinds of presses, type of work, personnel used for the transition, size of imagesetter or platesetter, kind of software, and billing issues.

Karen Gill from the Internal Revenue Service Forms Management explained how essential MECCA Systems are in the production and distribution of the 900 current tax forms handled by the department in her presentation, Using MECCA to Publish and Distribute Federal Tax Products.

Six hours of mini-training sessions were a big benefit to all who attended. Topics ranging from "Business Form Composition Special Effects", "Color Label Composition and Barcodes" to "Security Document Composition" kept everyone extremely busy learning new and more productive techniques.

After three days of exchanging ideas and brainstorming on producing the best quality of work, the meeting ended with a big "Thank You" expressed to June Garrett who was instrumental in organizing this year's meeting.