Adding Heidelberg and Fujifilm transforms "digital" into "total"
Web-to-Print trend continues following drupa

Will Pollard

For people near London who could not get to drupa in Dusseldorf there will be a chance in the autumn to catch up with some of the issues raised. Heidelberg and Fujifilm have announced that they will attend "Total Print" - the new name for what was Digital Print World. The expanded scope is intended to show the common use of digital workflows in pre-press and on the Web. Also the choices available for shorter runs as litho adapts.

“Although we’ve not exhibited at Total Print! Expo before, the show represents a perfect opportunity for us to demonstrate our growing range of solutions for short run printing and bring a few of the unique digital technologies we were showing at Drupa to the UK,” says Graham Leeson Fujifilm Marketing Manager.

George Clarke, Managing Director of Heidelberg UK said "Heidelberg is keen to be there because we have many products complementary to digital print, including the Prinect Digital Manager JDF workflow solution, a number of finishing products and, of course, the Speedmaster SM 52 Anicolor press which is an ideal solution for doing short run or ultra short run work as well as long run work cost effectively."

This may seem rather a strange ambition as it is hard to imagine a Speedmaster suitable for the very short runs possible through digital. As I am now venturing into speculation you may choose to cease regarding this as a news story. But then, this is a website. And it tends towards a blog style by relying on a link to somewhere else.

In an online report for What They Think (similar text has appeared in Printweek as hard copy) Andrew Tribute wrote soon after drupa that his hot picks included high-speed color inkjet presses.

"I highlight three of them here but others were also very significant. The HP Inkjet Web Press and the Kodak STREAM Concept press showed the future with technology that may impact heavily into the medium run length profitable offset market. The Océ JetStream family showed that quality and high-speed can be achieved together and that drop on demand piezo technology can match current continuous inkjet technology for speed."

These machines are not expected to be actually delivered in the UK any time soon. But "the medium run length profitable offset market" could imply quite a high number compared to what was thought of as a normal digital run at the time of Digital Print World. In May Printweek reported that the Fujifilm Jet Press 720 was designed for 2,700 B2 sheets per hour.

At the drupa innovation parc a presentation from Oce included slides about the costs of managing a print order. The case for Web-to-Print is partly based on the necessity to reduce these costs as run lengths fall.

Bernd Zipper identified Web-to-Print as a megatrend (see my story for OhmyNews) and explained where to look at drupa. Clearly the innovation parc was where the innovation was to be expected but he also pointed out what was happening with "large vendors".

Last year around the time of Digital Print World Canon published an InfoTrends survey of Web-to-Print in Western Europe. Of those questioned, 20% of UK printers claimed some sort of solution already installed though this put the UK "in the bottom third in terms of adoption". These sort of comparisons can be misleading on trends. For example there may be UK companies who eventually will get involved in Web-to-Print although they are not yet seen as part of the printing industry.

As reported in Printweek, Think Colour intend to compete with digital for short-run colour with a new Heidelberg Anicolor Speedmaster. Based in Leeds they plan to sell nationwide through web-to-print though there may be more details later about how this integrates with Prinect Printready.

Alongside Total Print there will be another Futures Conference from the London College of Communication. The change of name not to include "Printing" takes some getting used to but indicates that a wider scope is solidly established. Future stories on this site may include further speculation and opinion intended to contribute to discussion. There will eventually be versions for OhmyNews that should be based on sources for what actually happens at Earl's Court in October.

This story will be updated here and on the drupa2008 blog
and will probably be sent to OhmyNews after Total Print

previously

Ghent PDF Group guidance for Microsoft Office

MAX mashes Flash and Adobe Classic

At the MAX conference in Chicago the emphasis was all about Flash and video on the web. Although it was Adobe that bought Macromedia the classic Adobe products around Postscript and PDF retain almost zero mindshare. This report is written on Tuesday October 2nd so there may be something later in the week about MARS and the Adobe Print Engine. But the press releases and the keynote have been all about AIR, the runtime for Flash on the desktop, and the Media Player for video. There is still some interest in text as AIR can cope with word processing such as Buzzword. But services such as Share seem intended to take PDF and display through Flash. The trend is towards video rather than text.

As Kevin Lynch put it at Flashforward - "We're really focused on video technology and helping you create experiences."

The name Macromedia has vanished but MAX still sets the pace. There is an implication for the print industry. The technology for hard copy is no longer seen as interesting so could be regarded as stable and finished. This will be considered on the drupa2008 blog. There has been no sign at all of any presentation from the Print and Classic Publishing Solutions Business Unit. The drupa2008 blog will use "Adobe Classic" to refer to Adobe as known before the merger and "MAX" as shorthand for the current direction.

PDF Print Engine is ready for drupa

Systems based on the PDF Print Engine are beginning to appear. FujiFilm have launched XMF, entirely rewritten around PDF. Agfa have upgraded ApogeeX to version 4.0 and Kodak will upgrade Prinergy to version 4. Heidelberg have announced that Printready will also be upgraded to include the PDF Print Engine. XMF is still lacking some features. Fuji workflow solutions manager Andy Walker told Printweek "It does not currently have a web-approval option. However, this will ship in a few months.” Probably it will take till drupa for there to be a range of suppliers with the full range of features available for demonstration. in a sense, drupa has already started. Strangely, the Printweek report by Simon Nias suggests that "Fuji expects to sell 50 copies this year and it will do well to achieve that target given that the prevalent attitude among printers is one of caution." Another view would be that print corporate customers will become aware of the potential of XML documents, both open source and in versions approved by Microsoft, and expect the same kind of speed and control from print services. Adobe have taken ten years to provide a RIP for litho that works with PDF. Global Graphics will probably do more to support the XML paper specification in Vista. See video link below.

Switzerland neutral space for Adobe and Microsoft
to present on open standards

At Winterthur in May there was a meeting about XPS and PDF, including links with XML and current RIPs for hard copy. XPS is an XML Paper Specification developed by Global Graphics for Microsoft and released as part of Vista. A RIP is something in a pre-press workflow that is needed to make plates or connect with a digital press. XML is an approach to data often supported by open source software. In the background is a continuing discussion about the Open Document Format, already supported by the ISO as an international standard. The ISO is based in Switzerland. The Open Document Format is used in Open Office and is also supported by Scribus, see story below.

A video shows one claim about integration for corporate document output.

Jim King from Adobe spoke about Mars, a project that runs with Acrobat 8 and is based on XML and SVG as a future take on PDF. A presentation by Jim King from the PDF University is available through the AUF. About 5 megs. It covers the future of both PDF and Flash.

Scribus and the Summer of Code

Scribus, the open source software for desktop publishing, has been invited to participate in the 2007 Google Summer of Code. Project ideas include a Publishing Solution and possibly links to JDF. There is discussion on the Scribus site as to how JDF is supported in Quark. Another idea is to improve import and export of Open Documents in the story editor. There is no guarantee that these features will be complete and tested by the end of the summer but the discussion shows a direction. Arguably JDF is just another example of XML and is not as difficult to implement as sometimes appears.

Google have a continuing interest in Docs and Spreadsheets, an online service. Current experience is that most Word files load without a problem and can be saved as Word or as Open Documents. For many users, this is something that is welcome.

LCC continues to morph from print to "communication"

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stories from 2006 and previously

New guide to JDF puts an end to the mystery

CIP4 have announced a new publication from BRIDG's. The JDF Guide for Managers represents over a year of research, fact finding, interviews, writing and editing with contributions from all corners of the industry. Dennis Balas, BRIDG’s Co-founder, said- “I think people who look at the 900-plus page JDF specification ask themselves, how am I ever going to understand this? Few printers really need to know the JDF specification; they only need to know what it means to them, and what they can do with it on a more practical level. " Hard copy versions will be available at Graph Expo or from Printtools. The press release states that there will be an e-book version "primarily intended for companies outside of the North America that may not want to wait for the printed booklet to ship". As of Saturday there was no sign of this on the Printtools website. However, there are two previous PDFs on the Adobe website- 'The JDF Revolution - an Educational Guide' and 'Softly, Softly, Catch a Monkey'.

The publication is sponsored and funded by Adobe, Global Graphics, Heidelberg, Hewlett Packard, Hiflex, Kodak, Komori, MAN, Press-sense, SAPPI, Xerox and Xpedex.

Adobe UK skews away from print

Adobe UK will not have a stand at Digital Print World in 2006. They are promoting Acrobat 8 in some tents on Regent's Park. The themes include Acrobat 8 for e-learning and Acrobat in 3D for engineers and construction. An article in PC Pro by Tom Arah suggests that Adobe are working on Apollo, a screen experience merging the PDF page metaphor with Flash animation. Currently this article is only available as hard copy. The website has an earlier one about DTP.

Adobe USA will have a stand at Graph Expo. What They Think reports that JDF will be an important topic, almost as significant as MIS in supporting print viability.

Quark will have a stand at Digital Print World and host a series of seminars. The capability to work with Job Jackets is a major feature of Quark 7. Job Jackets are written in XML and are consistent with JDF. They can allow a print customer to specify all aspects of print production. They also allow pre-press to specify formats within which new pages can be created. This feature of Quark 7 is moving JDF beyond 'process automation' towards a the relationship with customers. It is the desktop creation of JDF that could be the most interesting feature of future discussion.

The 'Softly, Softly' approach (see link above) may get JDF on the desktop eventually but the JDF aspects of Acrobat 8 will need at least a mention somewhere. So far there is not much detail on anything that was not in Acrobat 7 except that nobody knew about it ...(continues on blog)

UK User Group

The new Acrobat Users chapter supported by Adobe met at the Guardian's Newsroom in early June to discuss print publishing and CAD. As well as the new 3D possibilities there was a guide to creating PDF in InDesign including how to cope with transparency. The UK based Acrobat User Forum is no longer active though the website continues and there may be fringe meetings at other events.
See slideshow on route to the Guardian (2 meg , requires recent Acrobat) More on the Guardian plans for PDF on the Acrobat Services site.

Open Source arrives at IPEX

OhmyNews have published a report from IPEX about Open Source and XML. They decided not to use a photo of the penguin slide that was part of the Dalim press conference. This photo is of poor quality but is shown here as evidence of the event.