Automation On the Road to Seamless

Adobe PDF is a file format that may contain many different types of objects and constructs, not all of them equally suitable for print production. The activities of the Ghent PDF Workgroup (GWG), an international assembly of more than 30 industry companies and associations, are intended to establish and process specifications for best practices in graphic arts workflows. Given that more PDF exchange is happening in packaging prepress, the primary activity of the Packaging Subcommittee of the GWG is to build a set of guidelines for the creation, exchange, and quality control of PDF files between document creators and document receivers in the packaging market. Accordingly, the GWG "baseline format" contains guidelines for creation, exchange, and quality control of PDF files among brand owners, design agencies, and prepress houses. It covers flexo, offset, gravure, etc. based on the benefits of digital file transfer, easy storage and maintenance, and secure communication up and down the supply chain—among other advantages.