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OpenXPS support in the Mako Core™ SDK

I’m excited to announce that Mako 6.6 will support OpenXPS (OXPS) as both an input and output!

But Mako already has lots of inputs and outputs – so why is this one so exciting?

Mako in Printing

Mako, in my opinion, is the premier SDK of choice when it comes to meeting challenges where performance, reliability and accuracy are required. This is particularly so with many printing use-cases.

These use-cases can include handling multiple page description languages (PDLs) from upstream workflows including PDF, PostScript, XPS, PCL, IJPDS and PPML. The only other PDL that was missing, until now, was OXPS.

The exciting part is that having this final PDL puts Mako in a unique and enviable position, as it now supports all common print PDLs, with a single, simple, consistent and clean interface and document object model (DOM).

Formats supported by Mako.
Formats supported by Mako.

Mako benefits

  • Consolidate multiple SDKs for each required PDL.
  • Requires less developer downtime to learn multiple libraries and interfaces.
  • Offers a single point of contact and support for all your common PDLs from a trusted company with years of industry experience.

If you’re interested in hearing more, please get in touch with us and see how we can help with your software challenges.

If you fancy taking a look at some code samples to see what Mako can do, feel free to head over to our developer documentation.

Further reading:

https://www.globalgraphics.com/products/mako

About the author

Andy Cardy, Principal Engineer at Global Graphics Software
Andy Cardy, Principal Engineer at Global Graphics Software

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Mako™ – the print developer’s Swiss Army knife

Mako - the Swiss Army knife of SDKs!
Mako – the print developer’s Swiss Army knife.

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