Attendees will enjoy educational sessions today, along with the opportunity to see all of the latest prepress and premedia offerings on the show floor. Among the highlights are the winners in this year’s MUST SEE ’EMS competition in the Prepress and Premedia category, including Ricoh’s Clickable Paper (Booth 2600), a cross-media service enabling consumers to point an iPhone or Android smartphone at any printed surface and be linked to any kind of online media.

Kicking off today’s educational slate at 8:30 am in Room S404a is the Mac Lab session “But Will it Print? Creating the Perfect File Using InDesign”, presented by Lorraine Donegan, Associate Professor at Cal Poly State University. “The challenge we face every day is how to create print-ready, trouble free files,” says Donegan. “The lines between the prepress technician and the graphic designer are beginning to blur. In this hands-on session you’ll learn how to harness the technical side along with your creative side, using InDesign to create the perfect digital file.”

There will also be three direct mail workshops presented by Trish Witkowski of the FoldFactory. The 10:30 am session will cover direct mail design. The 2:00 pm session will discuss optimizing the direct mail format, and the 4:00 pm session will discuss tracking and measuring. These sessions are in Room S503ab.

“There are many things to think about before starting a direct mail campaign, including the audience, the message, the offer, the format, technology integration, and any techniques you might use to engage the recipient,” says Witkowski. “A great design and compelling marketing copy are important parts of the process of creating effective mail, but choosing how that message is delivered will directly affect your bottom line.”

There will also be a free 12:30 pm exhibitor session in Room S404bc titled “Surviving the Digital Document Revolution”. It will be presented by Michael Lambert of Sefas Innovation (Booth 4411) and will discuss how the digital document revolution is changing the face of the printing industry, driving content across an ever increasing number of distribution channels.