New downloadable packaging specifications from GWG

GHENT, Belgium—The Ghent PDF Workgroup (GWG), an international association that helps produce and exchange digital documents for the publishing workflow, announced the availability of new GWG Packaging Specifications, offering best practices for PDF file exchange in packaging applications. The specifications developed by the GWG’s packaging experts were tested in North America by Kraft Foods Inc., and in Europe by France’s Square. The new specifications are downloadable for free at www.gwg.org.

GWG Packaging Specifications Reduce Time-to-Market
According to GWG Packaging Subcommittee co-chairs, Steve Carter, director of technology, St. Louis Division of Southern Graphics Systems, and Christian Blaise, international sales account manager for Enfocus, the main goal in packaging production is to reduce both time-to-market and cost by finding the way to get the job done correctly the first time.

“The GWG Packaging Specification Subcommittee has worked extremely hard over the past two years to develop packaging specifications in order to meet the very specific needs of this segment,” explains Blaise.

The GWG specifications were tested using real production files in real-world environments, by leading organizations in North America and in Europe. It was a collaborative effort that has resulted in a set of best practice specifications for packaging that are designed to help ensure more reliable and consistent PDF file exchange for all the stakeholders involved in packaging.

The Packaging Subcommittee—representing more than 30 companies all over Europe and the USA, from Prepress/Printing/Converter/Repro organizations; to associations, brand owners, vendors, consultants, and educational institutions—worked together and evaluated the best practice implementation of end-to-end PDF workflows in the packaging industry around the world.

The committee worked on the definition of “best practices” to include settings, rules, guidelines, workflows and a framework to define PDF as the ultimate exchangeable file format for the packaging industry, based on industry standards and market requirements.

The guidelines and settings are “generic” for the packaging industry and suitable for the entire process from Design through Output, and covering all printing processes (e.g., flexo, offset, gravure).

Available GWG Packaging Specifications: Upstream Specifications Downstream Specifications Packaging Design LR (low res) Packaging Offset Packaging Design HR (high res) Packaging Gravure Packaging Flexo

Tested by Discerning Users Worldwide

In the U.S., Kraft worked with Southern Graphic Systems on the specification for PDF file exchange between designers and brand owners. Kraft’s Associate Director for Prepress & Print Technology, Gary Vogt, says that Kraft tends to use and receive highly complex files, and so he felt it would be advantageous for the GWG testing process to use files from eight of the company’s design partners, and processed for output by partner Southern Graphic Systems.

Vogt says that PDF files will become more integral to packaging workflows as they improve and validate the file hand-offs through the supply chain, and that GWG Packaging Specifications, accordingly, will bring substantial benefit to the industry. “The GWG is delivering on PDF’s promise of truly portable, reliable file exchange, even for the most complex applications,” he says.

In Europe; Square, the Lyon, France-based graphic production company specializing in publishing, packaging, brand design, digital asset management, and cross media, worked with the GWG to develop and test the new packaging specifications.

Roland Donzelle, CEO of Square, says, “For us, the main advantage of the GWG Packaging Specifications is that we can rely on a safe standard. As for our clients, they can count on improved exchange of graphic files. In addition, they benefit from a very high level of security through traceability, as well as improved time to market.”

“Now that the GWG Packaging Subcommittee has released its specifications, the entire industry should benefit from them.The production side of the packaging industry was lacking in workflow standards, in contrast to its administrative and operational side, in which economic and regulatory issues are very important and have been addressed. Any solution that leads to faster file exchanges while making them more reliable is a significant breakthrough,” says Donzelle.

GWG Packaging Specifications Overview
In the world of the Ghent PDF Workgroup, a specification is a set of guidelines to which a PDF file should conform. A practical example of a guideline could be the color spaces allowed in a PDF file or the image resolution required for images in a PDF file. The Ghent PDF Workgroup defines a number of different specifications. The reason multiple specifications exist is to support different market segments, different output processes or different workflows. As a practical example, a magazine advertisement workflow is going to have totally different guidelines than a newpaper workflow. All GWG specifications, with the temporary exception of GWG Packaging Specifications (see next paragraph), are PDF/X-Plus specifications. This means that all of these specifications are based on, and compliant with, the ISO PDF/X standards. As PDF/X-Plus specifications, the GWG has added extra restrictions and rules accommodating the corresponding, specific workflow on top of the requirement to be PDF/X compliant.

In packaging, features such as support for live transparency in PDF files and support for multiple layers are important and necessary. In the versions of PDF/X supported by the Ghent PDF Workgroup (PDF/X-1a:2001 and PDF/X-3:2002), those features are not supported. Therefore, the first set of packaging specifications are not PDF/X compliant. However, the ISO plans to release PDF/X-4 in mid 2007, where transparency and layers will be allowed. The Ghent PDF Workgroup will use this new ISO standard in the next version of its packaging specifications.

Collaborative Effort
The following GWG committee members participated in the creation and testing of the first GWG Packaging Specifications under the direction of the Packaging Subcommittee co-chairmen, Steven Carter, Southern Graphic Systems, United States and Christian Blaise, Enfocus Software, Belgium:
• Offset Specifications Testing: DeSchutter (Belgium) and Square (France)

• Flexo Specifications: John Henry (USA), Phototype (USA), Southern Graphic Systems (USA)

• Gravure Specifications: Winners (Europe)

Members of the Subcommittee include: Kraft Foods, L’Oréal, Brachs Candies, Sara Lee, Nestlé, Square, Winners, AGI, Curwood North America, De Schutter, Janoschka, Fort Dearborn Company, Graphic Packaging, Bemis Graphics, Southern Graphic Systems, Schawk, Vertis, Phototype, FTA, IPA, ERA, TAGA Italy, CalPolyTech, R.I.T., Adobe Systems, Agfa, Artwork Systems, Enfocus, Kodak, Esko and Global Graphics Software.