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Willie

Grumbler in Training
Joined
Jul 17, 2003
Posts
1
Location
United Kingdom
Hi all....just to say I live in United Kingdom and wondered it there was a programme for the P.C. in relation to picture framing..eg. type in the size of the picture and size of mount and it will compute the size to cut frames and total materials used.........thanks.........
 
There are about 6-7 different offerings from different firms in our industry. Have you looked at the Grumble's archive search yet?

Lifesaver
FrameReady
Fullcalc
Speciality
Fernsoft
etc.
 
Here are the ones I'm aware of:

</font>There may be others, and I hope the above info is accurate. (if not please let me know)

Mike

[ 07-18-2003, 11:46 AM: Message edited by: Mike-L@GTP ]
 
Mike, that's a good list. I also had:

Est Lite - Scenes, Belfast UK
MasterPiece (different company?) - MasterLynk Atlanta GA
VisionWorks - VisionWorks Inc. Toronto Canada
Royal Framing - Royal Framing Bristol UK
FrameX - Frames & Images Chattanooga, TN (looking to be bought out now)

And I know of one more from Norway (their sales guy even came to our office and demo-ed the product) but I can't find their URL anywhere..

And like Mike said, there's bound to be a number of other home-grown stuff out there
 
Wow, there sure are a lot of solutions for framers.

Hey thanks for the extras. I'll cut and paste them here for future reference, when the question comes up again (a few weeks)


Maybe i'll make some kind of comparison chart that shows some basic differences between them.

Mike (hoping Santa will put a Wizard under our tree this year)
 
That's a good idea.. I've seen various graphs and statistics about framing software (usually done by a major magazine) but nothing that I know of anywhere is kept up to date. I get calls occasionally from vendors looking to connect with the Wizard software, but then I rarely ever hear from them again. Shrug.

You'd think with the constant stream of questions someone would have done something by now. Maybe you could start a "Framer Geeks" site. ExtremeFraming.com or MikesFramingGuide.com...
I'd do it but I'm a little biased when it comes to the best mat design software out there.. ;)
 
Hi Steve,

I had some free time today and compiled a list, researched it, and sorted them alphabetically. Here are the results:

http://www.getthepictureframing.com/gfaq/

If anyone has corrections or additions, please email me.

Mike
 
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Sweet... when I happen to talk to any of those companies I'll be sure to mention your site and that they need to check for accuracy. The next trade show you're at you should go knock on their booth too...

I like how you included (where possible) what tool they used to develop the software with.

Good job.
 
Willie,

As you're in the UK, I'd recommend that you look seriously at the UK offerings ONLY. Mike and Steve did a great job of compiling the vendors currently available. I was a bit surprised that they both missed the most predominate vendor in the UK, however....

FrameMan typically displays each year at the Spring Fair in Birmingham, England. His product won a Fine Art Trade Guild Innovation award in 2001.

Mike - Your list is an excellent reference tool for future discussion on this subject. New and old framers alike are making the move to using software in some form or another, and digging through the archives on both The Grumble and the PPFA OLEX doesn't always yield the results.

I'd make two recommendations to your list as it is getting larger. </font>
  • Include a Company began business in 19XX, to simply reflect years in the trade.</font>
  • I'd break the list into two sub-categories..... "Pricing Calculators" and true "POP/POS Software".</font>

Regards,

John

[ 08-02-2003, 11:34 AM: Message edited by: John Ranes II, CPF, GCF ]
 
Hmm.. I knew there was at least one or two POS software packages hailing from the UK, and after googling for a while all I could find was Royal.

And like I mentioned before, I know of at least one more from Norway, I just can't find it anywhere on the web. After looking for more international POS software for picture framing, I've started to wonder what Asian countries use. I've been exposed to US, European, S. American, and Australian framers, but nothing from Asia. I'll have to go ask Mr. Wolf (he's been freakin' everywhere).

Is there a chart or something we can look at that shows the point of origin of everyone who's registered here at the Grumble?
 
Thanks for all the great feedback and emails. I had about a dozen emails about this today with some great suggestions. Keep em coming so we can fine tune this list.

The software question pops up at least once per month, and together we can make a (neutral) list that will help folks make a more informed decision.

Thanks for the info on FrameMan. I only included packages I was able to find on the major search engines. I'll put them in at once, with some other changes.

This is a maturing list, and understand that it probably has mistakes. Vendors are encouraged to email me if something should be changed. I may email each of them soon, to ask for input.

Have a great weekend,
Mike
 
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