Working with a Mako customer recently, I showed him how to code a utility to extract data from a stack of PDF invoices to populate a spreadsheet. I suppose you could describe it as reverse database publishing. This customer had originally licensed Mako to convert XPS to PDF, and later used it to generate CMYK bitmaps of the pages, i.e. using it as a RIP (raster image processor).
With this additional application of Mako, the customer observed that Mako was “like a Swiss Army knife” as it offered so many tools in one – converting, rendering, extracting, combining and processing, of pages and the components that made them up. And doing it not just for PDF but for XPS, PCL and PostScript® too. His description struck a chord with me as it seemed very appropriate. Mako does indeed offer a wide range of capabilities for processing print job formats. It’s not the fastest or feature-richest of the RIPs from Global Graphics Software – that would be Harlequin®. Or the most sophisticated and performant of screening tools – that would be ScreenPro™. But Mako can do both of those things very competently, and much more besides.
For example, we have used Mako to create a Windows desktop app to edit a PDF in ways relevant to production print workflows, such as changing spot colors or converting them to process colors. All the viewing and editing operations are implemented with Mako API calls. That fact alone emphasizes the wide range of applications to which Mako can be put, and I think, fully justifying that “Swiss Army knife” moniker.
For more information visit: www.globalgraphics.com/mako
