There is a very interesting release from Enfocus about JDF and PDF.

http://www.enfocus.com/news/shownews.php?id=135

The details will not be clear till drupa though there may be some clues at Seybold.

The intention is that job ticket details ( the JDF bit ) will be included as part of the PDF. I think that is right, this blog will change if facts are wrong. Now this going back to the original idea of a PDF with a portable job ticket format included. Just one file with everything required.

At Seybold Amsterdam 2003 there was a lot of discussion on how the JDF part and the PDF could be linked. There was a lot of support for keeping XML distinct. I think the Global Graphics approach with Courier follows this, but I could be wrong.

Adobe seems to be looking at an XML file that includes PDF as one part of it. This might be easier for database systems to cope with as getting XML in and out of PDF takes up some resource. For enterprise and government this may be a way forward but for print a PDF as it is now known, plus the job ticket in some way it is not going to get lost, meets the requirement for most people.

The Enfocus press release includes a statement by David van Driessche, Enfocus CEO. "Our support for job ticketing and JDF allows PDF workflows to be extended to include the original document creators; something that was clearly missing to date."

This is a significant intention. The 'original document creator' can create and proof a PDF for page description. Also they can specify the job ticket details as far as they need to. It appears this will all be in one file that is easy to check. From a quality assurance point of view this is document control as in the book.

There will be more on this later. Something longer will be on the WWW.atford website after drupa