Avoiding Computer-to-dumpster Workflow

Print Action, Nov 2004 by Bolan, Zac

It has been a while since I have wandered around at a print show and it was with some reservation that I decided to attend the recent Graph Expo 2004 in Chicago. Not that I do not find presses, folders and cutters fascinating, but I am a prepress guy and I did not really expect to find much to interest me, let alone excite me. Well, I was wrong.

From a prepress/workflow standpoint, all the usual suspects were there: Esko, Creo, Heidelberg, Agfa and Fuji, as well as a variety of smaller vendors with competing or partnered products. As you might expect, PDF has become the de facto standard in most workflows, with the exception of Esko Graphics' Scope workflow (formerly known as Fastlane). Esko Graphics has a significant installed base in the newspaper and packaging markets and its workflow solutions reflect this fact. However, in speaking with the company's engineers, they expect Scope to be PDF 1.5-based by the middle of 2005.

Everyone's talking JDF

Contrary to what their salespeople will tell you, each of the major prepress workflows essentially perform the same tasks - with proprietary variations - and all are evolving toward complete integration and compliance with CIP4's Job Definition Format (JDF) standard. Some vendors, such as Heidelberg with its Prinect workflow, are trying to provide the printer with completely modular integrated solutions from order entry right through to fulfillment.

In theory, all the information pertaining to a print project would travel digitally through each process in the print production cycle - selecting impositions, setting the ink on presses and programming the cutter or folder right through to printing labels for shipping. Other major prepress workflow vendors gain much of this programmability through importing JDF information from third-party print shop Management Information Systems, such as HiFlex's Office.

I am yet to meet anyone who is actually using a full front-door-to-back-door JDF workflow successfully in a commercial print environment. Frankly, I find it a little frightening to have an estimator determine imposition or programme a cutter. While high-quality planning is essential to a print project's success, there is no substitute for the knowledge brought to the process by a good prepress or journeyman bindery specialist. Automation applied indiscriminately can often be the impetus for a computer-to-dumpster (CtD) workflow.

Adobe launches online VDP resource

It was no surprise that publishing software giant Adobe had a fairly large presence at the show. As expected, the focus of the booth was its flagship product, the Adobe Creative Suite. Besides extensive demos in the company's theatre setting, experts were available for one-on-one demos and Creative Suite pundits staffed an Adobe Genius Bar for user tips and questions. While Adobe didn't launch any new products during Graph Expo, they did announce the launch of their online Variable Data Publishing Resource Center (www.adobe.com/vdp), an in-depth resource for both designer and print production specialist on virtually every aspect of this rapidly expanding sector of the print market.

Besides providing a very concise overview of the variable-data publishing workflow, Adobe has assembled a number of partner companies to enable their client-base to research the transition into this hot new market. Datalogics provides the DL Formatter solution for designers looking to add variable data to Acrobat PDF files, while EM Software, Sansui Software and XMPie all offer solutions designed to work with Adobe InDesign, each specializing in specific aspects and applications of variable-data publishing. Creo's Spire and EFI's VDP Solution are Adobe's preferred partners for VDP workflow.

Both of the VDP press technologies mentioned in Adobe's site feature their own proprietary VDP workflows, though will work with either Spire or VDP Solution. Kodak's NexTreme Software drives the NexPress while Xerox's Free-Flow workflow controls their iGen 3 Digital Production Press.

Quark shows a new face

In a return to the public eye, Quark also made an appearance at Graph Expo 04 with a good-sized booth staffed by enthusiastic and knowledgeable staff. Quark has not exactly embraced the public in recent years, likely the result of negative reactions from their clients over lack-luster customer service, slow adoption of new technology and a general stagnation of their prepress mainstay product Xpress.

In speaking with several members of Quark's management team, it became readily apparent that Quark is both acutely aware of the effect they have had on the industry and are extremely motivated to improve their image and reembrace the customer service ethos. To that end Quark's new President and CEO (as of January, 2004), Kamar Aulakh, spoke extensively about "the new face of Quark" at a press conference during Graph Expo. Aulakh reiterated the fact that Quark had become complacent in their dominance of the prepress market but that the company is now actively implementing several "customer-centric initiatives" aimed at returning Quark to a service-oriented company.