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What's a .PDF anyway?

PDF All Aboard?

Maybe we have an answer to all our prepress problems. 

It's called PDF. That's short for Portable Document Format. It's Adobe's file format. 

It's not difficult to grasp the basic principles of what PDF is all about. But it takes more than the page I have here, so please go read our related stories, then come back. All done? Good. 

(OK, for those of you who hate to flip pages, you should at least know that a PDF file can be made from a PostScript file. PostScript is the final format of a file made with Adobe's PageMaker or Illustrator programs and Quark's QuarkXPress, among others.) 

So, you see why it's so exciting, and why there's such enthusiasm. Clearly, PDF offers many clear advantages, so many that people are already using it successfully. 

If it works for all of us, it's going to be really wonderful. 

Since it was a format not originally designed for high-end four-color prepress, there are many issues to work out, specifically concerning maintaining or adding trapping or spot-color information, and a few other concerns. 

We're going to have to rely on the technical folks to understand the problems, then let us know if they can be fully overcome or consistently worked around. Even as this issue is going to press, surely software engineers are hammering out solutions. 

But the solutions are not just related to software problems. They depend on cooperation between leading systems vendors. 

With the prickly relationship between Quark and Adobe, particularly since Quark's startling offer to buy Adobe (Adobe said no) and Adobe's plans to release a new and better page layout program, for now called K2, which one would assume will compete with QuarkXPress--what is going to happen? 

The answer is that no one knows. But we're certainly all on the edges of our seats. 

 PDF Takes Center Stage

by Tatyana Sinioukov 

Seybold Seminars program director Thad McIlroy, Arcadia House, highlights key issues of PDF workflows 

Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF), the new golden child of the publishing industry, was a hot topic at Seybold in San Francisco in September. As PDF workflows are being implemented in various ways by industry pioneers, many agree that PDF stands a very good chance of becoming the standard for digital workflows in the near future. 

PDF, says Thad McIlroy, president of the San Francisco-based Arcadia House and program director, Seybold Seminars, will have a profound impact on the efficiency and profitability of workflows. 

A major advantage of PDF for the CTP workflow is that it allows for processing of pages independently of one another, he points out. Eventually, with the emergence of a new generation of RIPs that would accept PDF files directly, it would be possible, for example, to split up long documents and feed them to multiple RIPs. 

According to McIlroy, Adobe originally created PDF as a non-print format--intended primarily for screen display. 

"In its first conception--and it's still true today--PDF has the advantage that what you see in print can be preserved with absolute fidelity," he explains. "That kind of fidelity has tremendous appeal to a design-conscious world. Initially, there was a lot of excitement." 

"With the emergence of the Web, it became clear that the optimal form for online viewing is not the same as the optimal form for print viewing." Some find, says McIlroy, that HTML is a more user-friendly format for onscreen viewing. To strengthen the PDF file format's utility online, Adobe added a number of different tools for online viewing, some of which are index-oriented, some of which are multimedia-oriented. 

As the print industry adopted PDF, these features were carried over, too and they make PDF more flexible for multiple types of uses than any other format, says McIlroy. 

Another key benefit of PDF, says McIlroy, is PostScript file "sanitization." When Adobe Acrobat's Distiller module converts a PostScript file to PDF, it in effect rewrites a file into a more formal structure that tends to output more dependably. 

Such sanitization, he says, "regularizes PS, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the regularized PS will now be RIPable," says McIlroy. So PDF is hardly a complete panacea for production problems. "If you have what we affectionately refer to as a 'file from hell' in the PS world, whether that's a particularly difficult QuarkXPress file or perhaps one that you've converted to PS," says McIlroy, "simply putting it in PDF does not guarantee that it will be smooth and happy and well-behaved." 

Though use of PDF does not guarantee that a file will run, it can eliminate many surprises. "It's my impression, although it is based on limited data, that if you had a hundred RIP-crashing files out of QuarkXPress, maybe two-thirds of them would function smoothly in PDF, but a third would still be RIP-crashers." 

That's partly because it is still possible for inexperienced users to create and send PDF files that contain missing fonts and bad PS, notes McIlroy. 

"The problem of missing graphics is addressed 100 percent as far as I can see. (For) the fonts, you do need to have the correct settings. You need to embed the fonts and avoid subsetting them," he notes. It is possible to send files without fonts embedded, and there are different versions of them, which complicates successful output. McIlroy predicts that solutions to font-management issues will be part of subsequent releases of Adobe Acrobat software. 

In fact, most problems with PDF will most likely be addressed by the industry soon, says McIlroy. "The list is not so much long as it contains some really key items." 

For example, he says, "When you come to something like trapping a PDF file--if we don't address that, 90 percent of prepress shops and prepress departments are going to say, 'Forget it.'" 

Software for PDF Workflows is Already Emerging

By Rose Blessing 

The following are just a few of the many PDF-related tools shown at Seybold San Francisco. 

www.acquiredknowledge.com 

EZ-PDF, from Acquired Knowledge 

With EZ-PDF, a prepress pro can set up PDF Distiller menu settings for a client's typical work and "package" them for the clients to use. EZ-PDF also includes pre-defined styles for common types of work such as digital advertising, large-format output or Web viewing. EZ-PDF can be configured to accept and/or automatically fill in job ticket information, according to the Portable Job Ticket Format specification defined by Adobe Systems. 

www.adobe.com 

Adobe PostScript Extreme, from Adobe 

Extreme is an extensible systems architecture comprised of software modules and general operating principles. Adobe OEMs can choose to incorporate some or all of its elements in future products. 

Extreme facilitates PDF workflows that take advantage of the Portable Job Ticket format and of the capabilities of PostScript 3 RIPs. Adobe PostScript 3 RIPs can accept both PostScript and PDF files natively. 

www.enfocus.com 

DoubleCheck, from Enfocus 

Type: DoubleCheck, announced at Seybold, is a PostScript and PDF preflight autocorrection and conversion solution. DoubleCheck provides a preflight report that gives details about colors, fonts and images and pinpoints any problems that were not automatically corrected by the program. It is intended that both document originator and prepress services provider use DoubleCheck.

Enfocus' other products include PitStop, Tailor and CheckUp. 

www.lantanarips.com 

OPI Doctor, from Lantana Research 

Typically, OPI information comes into PDF as comments only or as a low-res placeholder only but rarely with all the right info to both preview/proof correctly and to eventually print the high-resolution version, says Lantana. With OPI Doctor, you can include or substitute images (skinny PDF to fat PDF, or vice versa), verify and update links, and perform other OPI related functions. 

PDF Librarian, from Lantana Research 

Lantana's Librarian turns a PDF document into an archiving environment, allowing storage of digital files within it. 

PDF Bellhop, from Lantana Research 

Lantana's DF Bellhop uses a PDF document to provide full suitcase services. Not only fonts, but image, Quark, PageMaker or other digital files can be managed. 

PDF PowerPack, from various suppliers 

This is a $1,499 product bundle incorporating 

Enfocus CheckUp (verifies whether a document was properly created for its intended use). 

Enfocus PitStop (allows editing of a PDF document in Acrobat Exchange). 

Quite Imposing Plus (www.quite.com) provides visual tools for creating imposed sheets that are PDF pages. 

Lantana's Crackerjack gives expert control over PDF print output to high-end devices such as imagesetters, proofers, etc. 

Digital Media (www.digitalmedia.net) offers a 10-hour tutorial CD, "Adobe Acrobat PDF Workflow."

These tools are available from each of the above suppliers singly or as a set. 

www.extensis.com 

Preflight Pro 2.1, from Extensis 

Type: Preflight Pro allows users to open, inspect, and correct problems in a variety of applications before the files are printed. With this latest version, PDF files can also be inspected and corrected. Settings used to create PDF files can be saved, locked, password-protected and distributed to other users. 

Due to space limitations, we could only highlight a few products; find Thad McIlroy's list of 38 vendors' PDF-related products at www.seyboldseminars.com/News/Front/PDFday.html.