PDF Update

As Adobe celebrates 10 years of Acrobat, pP takes a look at how PDF is used in packaging.

TEN YEARS AGO on June 16, Adobe Systems launched the first commercial release of Acrobat, and with it delivered the Portable Document Format (PDF). For years before, the company had used the program internally for mundane things like annotating memos and printing corporate phonebooks. Today, you can't be in the graphic communications business without touching something PDF every day.

Just how did this software—originally designed as an office tool—become so ubiquitous in the graphic arts industry? You might call it a brand loyalty thing. Because, according to Adobe Print Scientist Dr. James King, "...the market we were after was one we didn't have very good connections to. [But] our loyal [Illustrator and Photoshop] customers bought this thing that didn't really satisfy their needs. So we did the natural thing: We fixed it."

King made the statement in an interview with PlanetPDF Editor Kurt Foss published online June 10 ("Adobe's Jim King talks about first Acrobat and PDF decade," www.planetpdf.com). He was in the midst of preparing to address the inaugural European Seybold PDF Summit in Amsterdam, where some of our brethren across the water would be initiated into the PDF vision, some would celebrate the accomplishments of a decade, and others could no doubt reflect alongside King on what a "long, strange trip it's been."

A tenth anniversary is a good time to take a look into any technology or idea. At a glance, Acrobat and PDF are healthy and thriving in the printing industry. Adobe has partnered up with the graphic arts community and given us, in due time, the features we need. Third-party vendors have exploited the specification and built tools for PDF workflows. Trade groups are actively advocating and lobbying compliance.

But, we don't have to take the pulse of PDF with our gloves on. This format's success and dominance in the printing industry can be appreciated by reviewing some recent milestones. For years, the DDAP (Digital Distribution of Advertising for Print) Association has been one of the most powerful working groups supporting PDF. Last fall, at the DDAP's own PDF/X Summit, event coordinator Linda Manes-Goodwin took stock of some noteworthy achievements, including:

• The PDF/X-1 specification had been published;

• The PDF/X-3 specification had received ISO accreditation;

• Time Inc. had announced that all digital ads for its 56 magazines must be supplied in PDF/X-1a format, and stated that eventually Time publications would only accept ads and deliver final content in PDF/X-3 format;

• PDF had been evaluated in practice at the "Seybold PDF Workflow Shootout" where vendors demonstrated their solutions for creating, exchanging, and outputting PDF files;

• DDAP's PDF/X Implementors Chart showed the number of companies developing tools that support PDF/X had grown to 13;

• The DDAP had also started a Digital Ad Database that listed 34 printers and prepress providers who prepare ads in PDF/X-1a format;

• The IPA had published—and hundreds of users had downloaded—the free Ultimate PDF/X Guide; and

• The Ghent Workgroup had formed to advocate best business practices for PDF.

As well, the IPA Association of Graphic Solutions Providers this spring hosted a PDF/X-3 proofing device shootout based on the Altona Suite of test files developed by several European trade groups. Eleven vendors tested 19 different proofing systems at the event. Michael Jahn, a prolific PDF proselytizer who recently joined the ranks of Pantone as Hexachrome evangelist, was a judge. He says the shootout "wasn't intended to rate the devices" but rather to provide a venue for a non-biased appraisal of how well the vendors were prepared to exploit the PDF/X specification. (Visit www.ipa.org for more on the shootout.)

These activities certainly underscore how intrinsically PDF is being woven into the fabric of our print manufacturing process. The release of Acrobat 6, the proliferation of PDF-compliant products, the maturity of PDF/X-1a, and the new work being done with PDF/X-3 (an application standard which supports RGB images and facilitates color-managed workflows) all add up to a bright future.

As is typical, PDF's adoption in packaging segments of the market has been slower, more measured. PDF Workflow Evangelist Scott Tully of Vertis says that's because many of the packaging-specific applications have only recently become real PDF producers. "So, even if people in packaging wanted to exchange PDF, they were hindered by the special effects they could create in their proprietary system that didn't necessarily translate in the PDF library."

Still, Tully says he'd describe the shortcomings as more "limitations in communications" than real technological barriers. He, Jahn, and others who live and breathe PDF for printing look beyond what they consider to be very solvable issues. They see an automated future that simply wasn't possible with PostScript. They have a vision of an überPDF world where a single file can be blindly exchanged and rendered under different conditions with confidence.

"When the PDF standards work was started some seven years ago, we tried to anticipate what was going to happen in the marketplace today. Where we hope to be heading in the near future is to a digital manufacturing utopia where everything you want to have happen to your job travels with your job.

"Imagine building a file that's intelligent. When it's sent into a digital workflow, all your equipment automatically configures itself. That's computer aided manufacturing and that's where we're headed."