A prepress automation practice, built by the person doing the work.
Print with Synergy is a print automation practice led by Quincy Adams. Third-party Esko AE and HYBRID Cloudflow support contracts, custom development at the frontend ↔ print intersection, and an AGPL-3.0+ open-source stack you can fork.
I got tired of the status quo.
Print with Synergy exists because prepress consulting deserves better than it's been getting. Shops pay enterprise rates and end up with juniors on the keyboard. Automation Engine installs get stood up, half-configured, and then quietly described as “good enough.” Cloudflow workflows get patched around instead of rebuilt. Everyone agrees the result is bad and nobody changes it — because that's just how prepress works, apparently.
I don't agree. I started this practice to do the work the way I've always wished it were done: a senior engineer owning the engagement from start to finish, implementations that actually match the shop, and documentation you'll still be able to read two years from now.
Twenty years of prepress, put to work for your shop.
Print with Synergy is led by Quincy Adams, a principal engineer with two decades in prepress and print production. The practice is built around that depth of experience — Esko Automation Engine and HYBRID Cloudflow are where I'm deepest, but the integration work has always spanned the MIS, ERP, RIP, and automation systems those platforms have to connect to: Label Traxx (Amtech), Cerm, ePS Pace, Avanti Slingshot (Print ePS), Tharstern (Print ePS), ePS Radius, NetSuite, JD Edwards, Kodak Prinergy, Agfa Apogee, Enfocus Switch, and the rest of the ecosystem a real shop actually runs on.
Our engagements tend to look the same from the outside: a discovery call, a written assessment, a scoped build, and a support arrangement that matches how your shop actually operates. We don't work with brand owners. We work with the printers, converters, and label shops running the presses.
PWS is also not just an integrator. When a shop needs a real software layer — middleware between systems, an internal tool, a production service — we build it. LintPDF, built for our own prepress work, is in production and on PyPI as an AGPL-3.0+ open-source package. That kind of depth is unusual in this space.
Twenty years of prepress automation, in numbers.
- 50,000+ jobs/month
processed through Esko Automation Engine workflows I built
- 200+ jobs/day
through fully automated preflight-to-plate pipelines
- 14 facilities
running on HYBRID Cloudflow ↔ ERP integrations I architected
- 5 enterprise ERPs integrated to prepress
NetSuite, JD Edwards, CERM, Label Traxx, ePS/Radius
- 83% reduction
in proof generation time
- 75% reduction
in production errors
- 60% reduction
in manual touchpoints across order processing
- 40% reduction
in order-to-fulfillment time
- These aren't hypotheticals. They're production deployments at multi-facility US converters, label printers, and commercial shops, built over two decades.
Prepress automation and modern full-stack — both, actually.
A rare team that can read a JMF dump in the morning and review a TypeScript PR in the afternoon. This is the structural differentiator.
| Frontend | React 19, Next.js 16, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, shadcn/ui |
| Backend | Node.js, Python, REST/GraphQL APIs, Postgres, Redis |
| Infrastructure | Docker, CI/CD (GitHub Actions, Railway, Vercel), Linux server admin |
| Prepress | Esko AE (JS/Python scripting, SmartNames, Pilot tickets, workflows, JDF), HYBRID Cloudflow (Workspace, Packzflow, Proofscope, REST API, JMF), Enfocus Switch, callas pdfToolbox, Enfocus PitStop Server |
| Print formats | PDF/X-1a, PDF/X-3, PDF/X-4, overprint, trap, spot color, DeviceLink ICC, GWG 2022, imposition, 1-bit TIFF or LEN |
| MIS / ERP | ePS Pace, Avanti Slingshot, Label Traxx, Cerm, ePS Radius, PrintVis, NetSuite, JD Edwards — JDF/JMF, REST, XML |
Public repos you can audit today.
These are real tools built for real prepress problems — not demos. All AGPL-3.0+. The license prevents future closed-sourcing by anyone, including me.
| Repo | Language | Purpose | Status | License |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| lint-pdf PyPI | Python | PDF preflight engine — 500+ checks across image, color, fonts, packaging, regulatory | Public beta | AGPL-3.0+ |
| lens-pdf GitHub | TypeScript | Headless React PDF viewer with plugin support for inspection and approval workflows | Public beta | AGPL-3.0+ |
| assay-pdf GitHub | Python | GWG 2022 conformance assay for PDF preflight engines | Public beta | AGPL-3.0+ |
| codex-pdf GitHub | Python | PDF structure and reference layer | Public beta | AGPL-3.0+ |
| compile-pdf (suite) GitHub | Python | PDF build and assembly — core + cjd, impose, marks, rewrite, trap producers | Public beta | AGPL-3.0+ |
The Pixie Dust SaaS boilerplate, Fairy Ring plugin system, and copper-anvil are developed under Think Neverland. GitHub: github.com/printwithsynergy.
Three principles, stated plainly.
How we work
Senior-led, scope through support. You know who leads your engagement — the same engineer on the discovery call is accountable when something breaks at 4pm on a Friday. No account-manager layer. No rotating team of juniors.
What we won't do
We won't oversell. We won't scope work your shop doesn't need. We won't hand you a zip file and disappear. We won't build a workflow only we can maintain. And we won't pitch you a buzzword-packed deck when a twenty-minute call would do.
Why open source
The AGPL-3.0+ license on everything we build is a structural commitment, not a marketing claim. You can verify it on GitHub today. It means the code can't go closed-source — not by anyone in the team, not by anyone who acquires the practice. You own a fork of everything we build together.
AI-augmented prepress.
The prepress automation problem hasn't changed in 20 years. The tools to solve it just got dramatically better.
I'm building the AI-augmented layer for prepress workflows: MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers that integrate Anthropic Claude with Cloudflow and AE; RAG pipelines over production documents and customer correspondence; agentic automation for ticket routing, exception handling, and customer follow-up. None of this replaces a prepress engineer — it removes the parts of the job that shouldn't have needed a human in the first place.
If you're a printer interested in piloting AI-augmented prepress workflows on your stack, get in touch.
Think we might be a fit?
Tell us about your stack and the problem you're trying to solve. We'll be in touch within one business day.