The Promise of PDF

Belgium is the Epicenter of Forward-Thinking Professionals Trying to Plot the Future of PDF

By Noel Jeffrey

PDF has been called the Holy Grail of graphic arts — a universal file format that delivers output that is the same no matter what platform was used or which application created it. That kind of enthusiasm hypes reality a bit but encapsulates the real possibilities.

Although challenges do remain for PDF workflows for commercial offset printing, today it is an accepted and often preferred method of file submission for production. Terri McConnell, marketing director at Cincinnati-headquartered packaging prepress house Phototype, says: "PDF enabled data can be used in commercial printing but it is lacking the essential functionality to be applied to package production. PDF is ideal for collaboration among designers and clients, but it's just not powerful or specific enough for final output format. Yet, our clients are asking for final art in PDF. If PDF could be used to approve contract color and contain the essential information for printability, it would be a huge value."

Enter the GWG...

Members of the Ghent Workgroup (GWG), a non-profit organization currently headquartered in Ghent, Belgium, recognize that potential value and have several PDF packaging profiles that are in various stages of development now. Basically, packaging needs its own profiles because among many aspects, existing commercial specifications do not permit transparency, spot colors, or white backgrounds.

Specifications or profiles contain the preflight criteria for each type of PDF. Application vendor documentation should provide the settings necessary to meet the criteria for a certain designation. For example, Acrobat 6 can save files as PDF/X-1a or two types of PDF/X-3 and preflight the files to test compliance. Acrobat 7.0 Professional includes support for the latest versions of the PDF/X standards as well as Job Definition Format (JDF) product definitions. Prepress houses, printers, or publishers designate which PDF/X flavor they require.

To date, the GWG has developed PDF specifications that are free and available for magazine, newspaper, web offset, and sheetfed offset. They are designated as a certain numerical PDF/X variety. New for this year are developing specifications for packaging, ICC color-managed workflows (in PDF/X-3 workflows), and Job Tickets for advertisement and page-based workflows.

The GWG also has subcommittees of company representatives (not necessarily from GWG member associations or vendors) who actually work on testing what the group calls "baselines." Once a subcommittee believes testing is complete, recommendations for a specification are submitted to the GWG members for adoption. The very first packaging baseline was submitted to the GWG last month, and members were hopeful that this will be adopted as a Version 1 specification covering PDF exchange among designers and brand owners.

Hands across the ocean

McConnell credits Vicki Blake, director of business development in North America for Enfocus Software (see sidebar on page 77) for getting this continent involved in the packaging subcommittee. Blake explains that since the GWG had already finished eight commercial specifications for PDF and these were now in maintenance mode, members were looking at other challenges. "The Belgians and the Germans were most interested in packaging, and I felt we needed to be involved as well," says Blake. "I called old friends from my Barco (now Esko-Graphics) days and at the first meeting in Chicago, and 30 people showed up."

The result is that North America has its own GWG packaging subcommittee (GWG PSC) headed by Steve Carter, the director of Technology of the St. Louis Division of Southern Graphics. In Europe, which

The result is that North America has its own GWG packaging subcommittee (GWG PSC) headed by Steve Carter, the director of Technology of the St. Louis Division of Southern Graphics. In Europe, which has had a subcommittee for over a year, Christian Blaise of Nestlé France serves as chair. Both men identify themselves as co-chairmen of the full subcommittee. In the U.S., Kraft is working with Southern Graphics on the specification for PDF file exchange between designers and brand owners. In addition, the subcommittee is working on production specifications for flexography, gravure, and offset lithography. European companies are working on the gravure and offset profiles, while in the U.S., Phototype is testing to help develop one for flexo.

Why bother with profiles?

Nestlé France has been testing a baseline profile for packaging with its design vendor since last year. In addition to adhering to certain PDF specifications, the company also requires that the design firm use CertifiedPDF.net (see sidebar on page 77) as a final preflight, quality assurance, and submission tool.

According to Blaise, PDF has already become a standard in job validation in its low-res form. The problem is using a low-res PDF for validation and a native file for production, because these two files are very different and sometimes print differently. The goal is to use a single, unique PDF file during the whole workflow, in production and validation, to reduce that risk.

"The other reason, which is, by the way, the main reason for the brand owner, is that if we are working in PDF, we are no longer linked to one system or another," Blake says. "It is then vendor-independent. As an example, in Nestlé France, we used to ask our suppliers (repro) to work with a certain workflow to have a standard (helping in file exchange and specifications). But the evolution of our graphic chain workflow was limited to what one vendor could offer to us. It is not easy as well to negotiate the price list, considering that we are forcing our suppliers to use a specific vendor. With PDF, they can use whatever they want as long as they are compatible with the input and output PDF file format."

The main goal is to reduce the time-to-market and cost by doing it right the first time. Southern Graphics' Carter says: "Consumer products companies are very frustrated about the supply chain. Designers believe that they have prepared production-ready files, but the prepress companies complain that the designers don't know how to build a file. Then printers complain that the prepress houses don't know how to construct plate-ready imposed files. The consumer companies say: 'Just work out the details.' The way to do this is to agree on a common file format with agreed-upon specifications."

Will designers benefit?

Inevitably, clients and vendors and standards committees are sending more responsibility for production upstream to designers. The question is whether or not this involves more time for observing rules and less time for creating. Both Blaise and Carter admit to meeting some initial resistance from the designers involved in the testing but that ultimately, the participating firms are pleased.

"It was hard to convince them at first," Blaise says. "They asked, 'Is this the new toy of Nestlé?' Now, they tell us that it helps them to understand others in the supply chain, to better control the quality of their work so the file exchange is simpler, to understand their mistakes thanks to the CertifiedPDF technology, and even to measure the skills of their employees and freelancers. At the end of the day, it is also faster and cheaper for them to produce high quality material."

"Kraft is doing major testing with four major agencies. For them, the exchange from prepress to press is not as big a pain point as design to prepress," Carter says. "They were skeptical until they started using it. Then they found that if they built the file according to the baseline specification and certified it, it was less work with fewer hassles. Certification doesn't happen until late in the design stage. Designers present clients with a number of options that get narrowed down to two or three. Then the final graphics are chosen and only at this stage does the PDF have to adhere to the specifications and go through certification. We are planning to recommend direct export of PDF from Illustrator and allow saving an Illustrator-compatible PDF. That way you can preserve editability in the file. Kraft is trying it, and we're leaning toward recommending that for Version 2."

Blaise notes: "The GWG PSC recommendation now is direct export for Adobe CS and PS/Distiller for legacy software. Concerning the Certified PDF, the GWG is building a specification for PDF in packaging that must be followed by all the vendors. The Certified PDF is only one of these technologies (even though it is now the standard). We use it as a tool to verify what we are doing (from best practices to proven practices). My goal, once we have all specifications and profiles ready is to work on the interoperability of all vendor solutions. Again, as I said earlier, at the end of the day, I don't want to be linked to any vendor."

Phototype's McConnell points out: "Yes, a profile can be restrictive. However, that's a benefit to designers because if they follow a specification that works, their intent has a better chance of coming off the end of the press. For example, if you're stopped because of a fine line violation, it's because the line won't print. Which is worse, learning early in the game what works or after plates are made? It's a sanity check that says, 'Here's what you can do.'"