(v13) HVD in position-independent mode

This page applies to Harlequin v13.1r0 and later; and to Harlequin Core but not Harlequin MultiRIP.

From v11.0r0 the external mode of Harlequin VariData is extended to allow the same graphic to be rendered only once even if it is used in multiple different positions on pages throughout the document.

Position-independence is especially valuable:

• when a page layout “flexes” with the specific data included in each instance. For example, in a direct mail piece where graphics and images are moved down the page if one recipient's address is longer than others.
• when many instances of a direct mail piece or label are imposed together into a single PDF “page” representing an imposed sheet, and where significant graphics on each imposed instance are selected based on the recipient's metadata and therefore appear pseudo-randomly laid out when the sheets as a whole are viewed.

When using position-independent HVD, you should note the following:

• By default, /OptimizedPDFIgnorePatternPhase is set to false, meaning the presence of a pattern in the job being scanned amends processing within the RIP if positionindependent HVD was enabled. The rasters and events are still output in the format expected for the value of the OptimizedPDFPositionIndependent flag, but multiple instances of the same graphic or collection of graphics at different phase offsets relative to the pixel grid are treated as different and are rendered separately.

To treat these as the same and hence potentially improve processing speed, set /OptimizedPDFIgnorePatternPhase to true.

• If HVD and recombine are enabled at the same time, HVD is turned off with the warning %%[ Warning: Recombine enabled disabling Harlequin VariData ]%% . Likewise, TrapPro and HVD are mutually incompatible and an attempt to enable both at once results in a warning %%[ Warning: TrapPro enabled disabling Harlequin VariData ]%%. Lastly, RLE output and HVD are incompatible and turning both on at once results in the warning %%[ Warning: RLE output enabled disabling Harlequin VariData ]%%.