I have been looking for a copy of Printweek with an article by Frank Romano about JDF. As memory serves, he questions whether print customers could contribute anything useful as detailed instructions given the number of problems they cause through unskilled creation of PDF.

Now this is strange given his enthusiasm in writing various books about how to create PDF. There must have been a time he was more of an optimist.

Meanwhile I have found an article on the web making similar points. The argument seems to be that there is no sudden return to justify replacing all equipment with new JDF compliance.

Also it is pointed out that only 12% of printers have IT staff ( could be less outside the US).

Can't find anything more recent to suggest his biew has changed. This could be an issue if he says much the same as at the Momentum in Print event in January. There may be some printers who would like to hear that technology issues can be postponed for a while, but are these the people who will turn up for the event?

According to the Editor and Publisher website the circulation for the San Francisco Chronicle is down 16.58% for the six months to Sept 05. The audience for the Adobe event may be expecting an integrated presentation covering the web as well as print. ( see 'the last presses' for discussion on web as an explanation for declining print circulations)

As far as I can make it out the front end of JDF is likely to be a set of constraints for people creating pages on Quark or InDesign. Quark have described 'job jackets' in some detail though the final release is not yet out. Adobe presumably will present something as part of the Momentum event. I have a vague memory of the presentation by Jutta Koch at the London College of Communication conference during Digital Print World. The slides are not available on the web. Maybe there is more to clarify in ways Adobe is working with OEM partners.

The original idea with Acrobat 7 seemed to be that the JDF could be created from the desktop in a similar way to PDF. This is the 'intent' level of JDF. Now maybe the details of the job have already been decided before page makeup happens. So the 'print service organisation' provides some kind of format or template, possibly for the print customer.

This would not require any great cash investment by a print service organisation. Maybe a recent PC or Mac and some current software. The time investment would be to get to a point where print customers believed there was an understanding of how JDf can be used. If it is getting easier to publish a PDF document to the web then it will seem strange if setting up a print request is more complicated.

After that it might not matter. Works instructions could continue on paper. The print industry may be no closer to computer integrated manufacturing than ever it was. Though probably some companies would be cheaper and faster that others so the reality of JDF would follow.

I posted a comment on the new blog from Bill McDaniel. He has left Adobe so has a new blog at
http://worldbehindtheglass.blogspot.com

I suggested my first thought, that Adobe has finished the phase of Postscript and PDF as a way to represent flat documents on the web. He replies that he hopes "Adobe will expand the concept of PDF into something that encompasses the animated web as you call it. They have an excellent opportunity to find the correct blend of classic PDF-style documents and the new world of Flash style documenting that is emerging."

Let us call that PDF 2.0 or something like that. PDF as a container has some way to go. I still think there is a mass of stuff in the previous Adobe project that is now stable and will probably be included in offers from other companies, both for office documents and for prepress.

The Adobe Macromedia merger is now a fact. I don't think it is just an Adobe takeover although the Macromedia name has gone. My impression is that the Adobe people have more confidence in the future of the Macromedia products than in the Postscript backlog they were working with. PDF was a way to transition from the printed page to the web. Maybe this is no longer exciting in San Francisco.

I am still mostly interested in PDF and I think it has a long way to go. Bandwidth like the future is not evenly distributed. On the planet print is still the main way of communicating.

Open Office and Microsoft Office 12 will both create PDF so it will stay around even if 'design' tends towards animation.