Preps 6, which will be a key component of the next generation of Prinergy, features a new unified, dynamic user interface, as well as superior integration with other Kodak Unified Workflow products.
Positive Focus, which has been a UK distributor of Preps for the last decade, said that the latest version represented the "biggest re-write we have seen in that time".
Managing director Ivor Dixon said: "There are a huge number of Preps users out there because it was embedded at various times in workflows from Scitex, Creo, Agfa, Fuji and Screen, as well as being sold as a standalone product, so it was pretty well a universal imposition solution.
"This latest version will give users a lot more tools in their toolkit that they can use and therefore a lot of the things that they found difficult to do previously, like putting multiple jobs up on a sheet, are now a huge amount easier."
Dixon said that things like job ganging has proved difficult on earlier versions because the ganging tool used to be "almost a separate application" that only worked on Macs.
"Now it's totally integrated and it runs on Mac and Windows," he added.
Kodak said that using a single workspace for ganged and non-ganged work would allow users to more quickly create imposition plans.
The new interface features drag-and-drop functionality for almost any major action, including adding files to a job, page position or sheet, and assigning sheet resources such as marks and folding patterns.
In addition, users can adopt the page content view to build and edit gang layouts manually and automatically, while the new version removes the need to manually enter page properties, or to submit or resubmit XML to invoke ganging.
Dixon said: "Preps is still really the 'grandaddy' of imposition applications in terms of the facilities it offers and in terms of the level of refinement that it has.
"There are other things that have attacked different bits of the imposition market, but there's really nothing much that can compete with Preps across a range of different jobs."
