Workflow/MIS/Web-to-Print

THE GRAPHIC arts market saw the need for industry standards and understood the growing XML (Extensible Markup Language) development when it supported the decision to create CIP4 (www.cip4.org). This association includes major equipment and software vendors in prepress, digital printing, offset and finishing. CIP4 created the Job Definition Format (JDF) as a standard way to exchange and understand job information. This process can begin to empower creative and production staffs to support an efficient manufacturing process. Tremendous efficiency can result from understanding the interdependence of each department. We largely still depend on paper-based processes that are isolated and disconnected with our current way

More coverage of Graph Expo product introductions . IT MAY be telling that the majority of presses in operation around the show floor of Graph Expo and Converting Expo 2006 last month were of the digital variety. Offset units were conspicuous in their absence. Digital presses have become part of the commercial printing mainstream, rather than being a specialty product segment or market niche. To emphasize this, Hewlett-Packard shared results from an InfoTrends study that surveyed a sampling of digital color printing buyers and producers. The research firm found that the percentage of color printing jobs with a run length

IN-PLANTS DEPEND heavily upon the skills of a few key individuals to remain productive: production managers, bindery operators, prepress technicians, computer systems managers, or any number of other specialized personnel that are a part of the print production workflow. When one or more of these people are absent, the whole workflow may suffer. Many in-plants are turning to workflow systems to help mitigate this problem. Workflow systems help to standardize how we process jobs. When we rely on key individuals, we are depending on them to remember what they did last time to solve a problem, or how to most efficiently move a job

RESTON, VA—August 29, 2006—The International Color Consortium announced it is launching a new user forum on color management on September 1. This will be an open forum hosted on the ICC web site at http://www.color.org/icc_users.html. The user forum is a further step in providing information and resources on the use of ICC profiles to the user community, and is in line with the ICC’s goals of building a user community, increasing participation by both members and non-members, and improving implementation of the V4 profile format. William Li, ICC chair, said “The goal of this listserv is to provide a forum where ICC color

Agfa ApogeeX 3.0 workflow software is based on PDF, JDF (Job Definition Format) and Digital Film. Featuring a single, easy-to-use user interface, it offers a range of capabilities. Provides extensive process automation and connectivity features. Apogee PrintDrive enables integration with non-Agfa workflow solutions and output systems. New step-and-repeat function requires a page to be RIPed and trapped only once. Apogee Raster Blaster helps integrate most non-Agfa output devices into workflow. Apogee Power Converter converts legacy formats to PDF. :Delano 2.6 project management system offers extended JDF connectivity. It offers better support for spot colors, an improved user interface and faster system responsiveness.