Chili Publish and Esko Announce Partnership

A GRAPH EXPO 2012 press conference late Monday provided the showcase for an announcement by CHILl Publish (Booth 971) and Esko (Booth 427) that Chili Editor will be integrated into Esko WebCenter for online packaging editing.

The announcement at the CHILI Publish exhibit, Booth 971, was made jointly by CHILI Publish chief financial officer Kevin Goeminne and Esko product manager of interactive pre-media applications Bjorn Willems. Both companies are Belgium based.

CHILI Publish was founded in 2010 and now has customers in 50 countries. Its product, CHILI Publisher, is a flexible and powerful online software engine for internal and external publishing workflows used by professional and non-professional users.

Esko, which has distribution partners in more than 50 countries and serves Europe, the Americas and Asia, is a worldwide supplier of integrated solutions for packaging, sign and display finishing, commercial printing and professional publishing. The company’s products and services help customers in enhancing productivity, reducing time to market, lowering expenses, expanding business and improving profitability.

Esko is the global leader with software for artwork creation, structural design, pre- production, workflow automation, quality assurance and online collaboration. The company’s solutions support and manage the packaging and print processes at brand owners, retailers, designers and packaging manufacturers.

The partnership between CHILI Publish and Esko means users will now be able to take advantage of a new Adobe Illustrator Plug-In to open packaging designs in WebCenter and create, edit and modify packaging content. That permits a designer or artwork creator to publish an Adobe Illustrator document to a WebCenter project.

Barcodes, nutrition facts, regulatory compliance data and other content can be provided by the brand owner just by going online, opening and editing the document using CHILI Editor within the WebCenter browser window.

Noting that fully half of all packaging errors originate in the content collating stage, Willems told attendees that with CHILI as part of the Esko packaging solution, “we close the gap between what the brand owner sees visually, and the content collation taking place elsewhere . . . Packaging content can now be collated within CHILI Editor.”

The result is faster times to market for the brand owner, and automation of operations for the pre-media company. The new online packaging function is slated to be available through Esko channels by the end of this year.

Goeminne summed up the partnership this way. “We’ve been seeing huge user interest in online document editing, as well as packaging functionality,” he note “Partnering with Esko, the technology leader in this domain, is a logical and important strategic step that helps us launch our technology into a new market.”