Adobe have plans to create some form of Acrobat User community. As I am involved in the UK Acrobat User Forum I can see some problems with this if it is true that Adobe will not support groups that include discussion of other PDF products.

See interview with Carl Young in Planet PDF
http://www.planetpdf.com/enterprise/article.asp?ContentID=7178&fa
He seems to have been not much clearer on Adobe pland after the PDF Conference and had some doubts about the '100% Adobe focus' - ''not being open to any solutions from any other, third party vendors, however valid or useful they may be". I think he has got a point. PDF has been intended as an open standard of sorts. Adobe has built up trust around this and there are ISO supported standards for pre-press and archiving. How are these to be discussed? So far the development of Acrobat has been helped by wider support for PDF.

Recently Seybold Seminars have been cancelled. Adobe Live is a great event and explains a lot about Adobe. However this is not the same as a Seybold event with editorial comparison of different choices. Once Macromedia is gone maybe there is not much to talk about. Still, something has changed.

Moving into the enterprise area is a new phase for Adobe and PDF. The established decision makers already have forms of communication. Adobe is only a part of this. Response to closed situations is likely to be limited.

OhmyNews have published my article about JDF at Print Chicago. On the Technology page.

More later. There is a demoscene event near Exeter that I need to get to first. At Budleigh Salterton in fact.

http://www.sundown2005.org/

Meanwhile CIP4 seem to have a really good presentation together. New directory on their website.

Falling asleep to the World Service one early morning I think I remember hearing that the Indian rope trick was actually invented by journalists in Chicago. Magicians in India then worked out how to do it. Maybe if there are enough reports about the potential of JDF there will later be more efforts to make it work.

Ohmynews have published the text on the use of print by themselves and WikiNews. They have added the fact that they also do a free PDF download of their print edition, something I did not realise. And they have left in the link to this blog.

Just as well as towards the end I started to write about something else that may become a suitable story for OhmyNews later but is better for a blog at the moment.

In the current Print Media Management Jonathan Levy is writing in a way that is open to interpretation. I think he might be saying that the print industry is not really offering much to the magazine production people who are becoming more technically aware. I may be reading too much into this. There is no mention of a rush towards web versions of magazines, although I think this is happening. there is reference to 'the rise of JDF and end-to-end digital workflows'. Maybe the magazine production people are aware of what this means and the print companies have not yet made the investment.

Printweek recently ran an article by Simon Eccles on the history of DTP from twenty years ago, a reassuringly safe distance. Both Chuck Geschke and John Warnock get a photograph but there is no reference to PDF or Acrobat, let alone JDF or XML. There is more going on now than is generally realised. I have suggested on the websites for Acrobat Services and WWWatford that John Cunningham from Adobe UK should be included in the Printweek Power 100. Companies like Heidelberg are represented. One of the criteria is 'influence'. The new version of InDesign has a way to create JDF. Probably before IPEX next year there will be ways to link in with this. For example Xerox Freeflow. Meanwhile Martin Bailey from Global Graphics has dropped out of the Printweek Power 100. I think this must be a mistake. Global Graphics actually concentrate on the print industry. Adobe may lose interest if they get somewhere with video. My guess is that they will not have their own stand at IPEX but maybe some small spaces c/o Xerox and others.

Printweek is published by Haymarket, who also publish Marketing. The Marketing article about the Wall Street Journal shows the print and online circulation in the same sentence. Presumably the people who work on Printweek sometimes talk to the people who work on Marketing. I think there will be some changes before IPEX in the way the print industry is positioned.

Link to article at OhmyNews

This is a version of a report from the Citizen Reporters international forum. It may be edited later. they may leave out the link to this blog.

It was surprising that OhmyNews has a printed weekly version. Apparently this is to reach the people who still rely on newspapers and encourage them towards the website. WikiNews has a PDF for download and some people are distributing short runs on campus or for a locality.

I realised I was going off topic when I got to a recent editorial by Jonathan Levy in Print Media Management. I am not really sure what he is getting at. He attended 'Vision In Print' and now fees that 'vision in print' is inadequate 'with the rise of JDF and end-to-end digital workflows' . the suggested phrase is 'vision in print media' 'to deliver the promise of a leaner and more sustainable future'. Previously I had thought of PrintMedia Management as pretty much part of the printing industry. Maybe the people in magazine production are now thinking about media in ways that include the web. Clearly there are now publishing organisations that offer something in print and online. This is something to come back to. Probably there will be more explanation in PrintMedia Management even though Jonathan Levy is no longer working as editor.

There is a recent book we were given in Korea called 'Media Big Bang'. I have started a page about this looking at the implications for ideas about quality. One term they use is morphosis, some policy on change. Maybe this applies to print and other media. 'Vision in print' seems to emphasise quality as consistency of current products. Improvement can happen within existing manufacturing processes. There may be some wider change going on. I have only started to read the book so more will follow later.

I have been invited to a forum for Citizen Reporters organised by OhmyNews in Seoul.

This blog may be updated over the next few days but more likely will be a short report at Guardian talk

http://mediatalk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?50@ohmynews@.7747ecc2

My hope is that the Guardian reports this event and makes some connections.

I have sent in an email to Printweek suggesting they include John Cunningham as part of their Power 100 feature. There is an update on the semi-fixed part of this blog
http://www.acrobat-services.co.uk/watford/blog3.html

This has photos. I realise I could have photos here but the other page is done now. Things do change very slowly. The selection of photos seems ok still. The Adobe video box is from the software parc at drupa. This will now go on tour so could be the highlight of IPEX next year.

My guess is that Adobe will not have a big stand. Xerox will probably find them some space as part of Freeflow. This will not mean that the Adobe software should be ignored. Acrobat 7 now has the capability to create JDF. Not many people are using this.

I'm at Charmouth for the Home Education Seaside Festival, campsite music and talks etc.

The internet marquee is put together by Psand and Bristol Wireless. Satellite broadband and wifi. Mostly cable though.

What strikes me is that the web acces has been there for about 40 minutes now and the official opening is almost an hour away. Yet there has still been a request for full colour printing.Someone walks in wanting promotion. No solution so far but there may be a printer somewhere.

So the web and print can work together.

Adobe here in Hall 9 with the public sector. Also on IBM and SAP stands. I still have not found an online example of a PDF form supported by Reader Extensions but there are some clues to follow up.

No Adobe promotion on hard copy as yet. But Scribus are here in the open space at the Linux bit. Apparently paid for by the German magazine, there is a lot of Linux stuff here. Scribus can do most of DTP functions and export PDF up to 1.4.

Weblinks later. This place is enormous and I keep muddling it up with drupa. Suggest IPEX looks at CeBIT as a benchmark as well as drupa. There is time for one more CeBIT before the next IPEX. The technology available will influence what is possible with print.

On my way to CeBIT at the moment. It seems Adobe.de will be there with an actual stand. At drupa it was quite hard to find them. The image on their site is of a struggle with a pile of paper.

I still think PDF is a benefit for the printing industry. Adobe just seem sometimes to be promoting the enterprise aspect as if it was a different product. Not much prospect of JDF turning up though.

http://events.adobe.co.uk/events/cgi/main.cgi?country=de

ICS Registry

just testing blogthis from Firefox

not sure how this started , right click to save PDF, then this option came up

is Firefox connected with Google? Quite possibly.

Simon Eccles, emphasis added

The Printweek from last Thursday (27 Jan) included a letter from Graham Pearce of Island Printers complaining about Adobe and the release of new versions of PDF that his software could not cope with. At first I could not see what the problem was so phoned him to talk about it. (Google found a phone number on the second suggested site)

Island Press has not yet invested in Mac OS X. This seems to be the crunch issue. To buy a new Mac and Creative Suite may cost £5-6,000. There are still many files in Quark 3.2 that work perfectly well. The few customers that have bought InDesign are prepared to supply PDF, so that's ok. They don't have Windows XP but do have Acrobat 5 running on Windows 2000. On the Mac they have Acrobat 4 and obviously could not buy Acrobat 7 without buying Mac OS X.

The problem seems to be that some customers have found out about Acrobat 7 and are sending in files in the new format. It might be possible to insist that customers saved in 1.3 or 1.4 and use the PDF/X pre-press standards as a basis for this. But some customers just create PDF without much training and don't really understand the best choices for print or web. Some customers may expect a print services company to be able to change the format version of a PDF.

However, is it reasonable to expect Adobe to stop with the features of Acrobat 4 just because this meets most of the requirements for print?

Printweek also features a review of Acrobat 7 by Simon Eccles (p 28) that covers the potential consequence of JDF for print workflows but without any sense of urgency or excitement as far as I can make it out. The opening question is 'who needs another PDF format?' coupled with the view that 'whenever Adobe updates Acrobat, all the service providers have to go out and buy a copy anyway'. 'If customers supply files in the new format, you need to be able to open them.'

About two thirds of the way through there is mention of the JDF feature, the ability to create JDF files with the PDF. "It's the first time this has appeared in a mass market application in a reasonably usable form.It lets you write a job ticket which defines the 'creative intent'". Actually although most print customers will be concerned with the 'creative intent' I think Acrobat 7 could create a JDF ticket at any level of detail required.

This has just as much potential to change the print industry as Postscript or PDF. The conclusion that this will make 'quite a difference' to 'some customer-supplier' workflows is a bit under-stated.

My impression is that PDF became established in UK print following discussions such as at the Digital Ad Lab. Publishers and agencies became aware of what PDF made possible, greater control over design, faster communication and reduced costs. Later print service companies responded to customer demand. Obviously this is a simplified view and there were some exceptions. Possibly JDF will be adopted in a similar pattern. Adobe seemt to think that most copies of Acrobat 7 will be bought by large organisations and architects or engineers. Some of these people will eventually discover the pre-press features or mention them to people in publishing.

Maybe I'm going off topic here. Obviously there are print service companies that can support JDF and offer training to customers. In the UK it seems most of these are the 'print management' companies that have created a link between customers and print. TripleArc are reported as moving into the 'data management sector' ( same Printweek, page 26). As mentioned previously on this blog, TripleArc were at IPEX 2002 trying to sell JDF software to the British printing industry. It has taken a while for JDF to become more obvious but there is no fundamental reason why print service companies cannot offer a JDF style directly.

If print companies do not want to invest in software they can still carry on printing with the same technology available now. There may be an issue with margins however if print is seen as a commodity and the value creating services are not seen as part of 'print'.

Now that Acrobat 7 is available there will be changes in the various web sites I work on. There will be an update of 'Hello Spiders', a version of my home page
http://www.willpollard.eurobell.co.uk/

It is still needing an update but this should be soon.

More evidence that the title of this blog is still sensible. IPEX 2002 was close enough to the 'dotcom boom' for broadband to be assumed. Some ideas went back a bit around the time of drupa last year. For example the collaboration and markup on proofs seemed a bit less obvious. Adobe server software is still expensive and not everyone will buy the full Acrobat. I now have a copy of Acrobat 7 and it works ok with Reader 7 for comments. Notes and mark-up are now available in Reader. However you can't also have signatures and form fields so you may yet prefer full Acrobat software. Not sure why this should be so, it may be a marketing policy. Basically you have most of Acrobat when you download the Reader, except it is mostly turned off.

Anyway, why quibble. Adobe Reader 7 is wonderful. You should download it soon if you havn't already.

The Job Definition Format is hidden away. It is not obvious that Adobe are promoting this. However it is there, under pre-press tools. Eventually several million designers will discover they can add a JDF job ticket to a PDF package with whatever level of detail they choose. Saved as XML.

Printweek includes the news that TripleArc has bought HFS Projects, expanding into data management and direct mail, described by Jason Cromack as 'data-centric solutions'. At IPEX 2002 the TripleArc presentation on JDF had a mixed response from print companies. Print Management has benefited from offering a database service.

Adobe have released Reader 7, just the other day. This appears to be the most amazing thing since around version 3, the one on CD. Commenting features do seem to work ok for the sample PDF on their site. However, this is not the best time to write it up. More will follow in the second week of Jan.

Meanwhile the other Acrobat sites need an update as well. Future corrective action required to encourage people to check the blog if they think some news is missing.

Meanwhile, whenever you have the time, download Reader 7. Seems to load quirte quickly for one thing.Yahoo local search on PDF. Suggest you give this a try. Quite slow but may be quicker on later searches. No time to check this now as I need to buy some wrapping paper.

Found a link to a story on digital downloads

http://www.mediapost.com/dtls_dsp_news.cfm?newsID=281153

ABC and BPA Worldwide are talking to each other about how to define a download. I think the SVG option that the Independent is looking at could change things. The issue seems to have started around a PDF option for the Guardian showing the complete photo and illustration content. This is different to the text content freely available on the website. But the web through SVG could offer a completely new graphic experience, different not worse to what is on the printed page.

The advertisers can probably influence this when they work out how the advertising should be designed. The figures in the mediapost article show they are now increasing the spend through websites, back on growth and almost twice the level of 2000.

http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?article_class=4&no=199907&rel_no=1

Links to OhmyNews Technology page with my recent post on Google and the Online Information show. The introduction has been rewritten to be easier to follow.

The story still includes the information about the Independent and SVG. So Inow havesent in four stories to the talkboard, three of which have made it to the Technology page. Each one is about the effect of the web on print publishing. As news, the first one is about the ABC UK decision to include 'digital editions' in print certificates. The second one is the news that actually nothing has happened as not one newspaper 'opted in'. The third is about the BPA Worldwide publication of actual figures for VNU publications IT Week and Computing. This did not make it to the Technology page. Maybe it is a bit detailed. There may not be a lot of people in Korea who follow what ABC and BPA Worldwide are up to. I'm not sure who reads the English version of OhMynews. There is a lot of interesting stuff on the technology pages. Much of it is about the effect of technology, especially the web. OhmyNews assume that the web exists so they are able to report it.
Meanwhile in today's Guardian I think Roy Greenslade may be missing some aspects of the situation around the Financial Times. The FT may have lost over 50,000 print copies intheUK but gained 75,000 subscribers on the web. So surely something fundamental is happening. News is viable online. Over time for the FT and later other broadsheet papers, the web will be at least as significant as print for subscription and advertising income. I am repeating earluier posts but I think the point needs to be made as Roy Greenslade's article is typical ofa lot of coverage by print journalists.

It seems that Jakob Nielsen did not mention PDF in particular as part of his keynote. I spoke to someone who was there and nothing striking is remembered about PDF. There is a lot of PDF evident in the exhibition. The British Library are still offering to email a PDF of any document within two hours to anywhere. They have to scan it each time. The publishers apparently would not like the idea of a store of scans. There is an additional charge of a copyright fee so the publishers are benefiting from the service. The PDF is tied to a particular computer so cannot be copied to another screen. Only two printout copies can be made. There is a problem for people who do not realise that they need the latest version of the Reader for the Digital Rights Management aspect to work. Sometimes people with earlier versions complain that something has gone wrong. I guess Jakob Nielsen would call this a 'usability' issue. Somehow people get used to it however.

No sign of Adobe or the 'intelligent document platform'. Documentum are sposoring some of the talks on content management but have no information on the PDF server software except that if pressed they state that it does work. This is arguably the most relevant UK show for intelligent documents. M aybe Adobe believe their message will get across online anyway. What appears from the show so far is that XML is the main format people wanr to work with. PDF is attractive for publishing when the design is fixed and security is required.

More on 'e-publishing' tomorrow. Theatre B, starts around 10.30

On Wednesday there will be a question time at the House of Commons organised by IP3, the new institute formed by merging Paper, Publishing and Printing. One consequence of the merger is that web publishing is now part of the debate. One question is expected to be 'is the printed book dead?' The answer will be no, probably, but it is interesting that the question is being asked.

http://www.ip3.org.uk/commonsdebate.htm

More on this later in the week.

I have sent a new post for OhmyNews based on the circulation figures for Computing and IT Week.

http://english.ohmynews.com

"BPA Worldwide releases certificates for VNU digita" on the Talkback board.

Jakob Nielsen is wrong and dangerous

Next week in London Jakob Nielsen will be a keynote speaker at the main conference for Online Information. His idea of usability seems to be to limit technology to what people already know about. He has often suggested that PDF should only be used for documents intended to be printed. This opinion has not changed over the years when the growth of PDF on the web would seem to suggest that many people are now familar with the Reader.

The Online Information event is attended by broadly two groups of people. Information professionals and librarians are often interested in the actual content. Gradually there has been a larger audience of people concerned with technology as such. There is now a part of the exhibition described as 'Content Management Europe' with specialised sections on Documents and Records and also e-Publishing.

The Content Management area is broadly the range of functions targeted by Adobe and the new server software promoted as the 'Intelligent Document Platform'. It appears that Adobe have not taken a stand but they work with EMC Documentum who will be represented. In the technology area, PDF is almost certain to be seen as one of the options, alongside XML with claims that the two are compatible.

At least Jakob Nielsen is prepared to engage in dialogue. On a previous visit to London he took part in extensive discussion as part of a Guardian Talk special. There was not much change in his opinion however. At Planet PDF they have despaired of convincing him and their rejection of his views is closely argued and totally convincing as far as I can tell. See 'Jakob Nielsen's PDF Phobia is seemingly incurable by Kurt Foss , Planet PDF Editor, in July 28, 2003. The only constructive attempt to relate to Jakob Nielsen is to show how Google can be set up to avoid PDF altogether.

There has been some comment on Forms, the leading aspect of the new phase of Adobe software. "Forms are the wrong metaphor for workflow support. It's much better to view data entry as an Internet-based application (or intranet-based application, as the case may be) and design a true user interface -- one that takes advantage of all of the GUI elements, conditional workflow structures, and user assistance techniques that have evolved through decades of interaction design for applications." This from an Alertbox in July last year. PDF forms can have most design features of any web page. Maybe Flex and Flash appeal to a certain aesthetic uniquely but there is not much in current web pages that cannot be done in PDF. There may be design and training issues that need discussing. If there is mention of PDF, maybe some detail on forms would be useful.

I think it unfortunate that Jakob Nielsen is influential. His ideas on Flash is not much more helpful than on PDF. Maybe the explanation of his position is that the result is very conservative. Any new technology can be sesisted on the grounds that users need to get some new understanding. One result in the UK is that the New Opportunities Fund paid for a lot of scanning of archive material, very little of which is available as PDF for public download. This is one of the few functions for which Jakob Nielsen would suggest PDF as being suitable.

At a recent Adobe webcast Ivan Koon stated that there will probably be an ISO standard for PDF archiving sometime next year. This will be similar to the PDF-X series for pre-press. There is interest in this, so it may come as a shock to people who rely on Jakob Nielsen as a source on how much time to spend looking at PDF.

I may be quite wrong to go on so long about this. There may be nothing said at Online Information about PDF, or Jakob Nielsen may have eventually found something positive to say. (There are reports for sale in PDF format from the Nielsen Norman website. Unusually the PDF icon leads to an ordering page, not a PDF file, quite a surprise for people raised on web conventions) I think whatever he has to say by the end of the show PDF will be reasonably established. Last year the British Library launched a document service based on PDF. So far as I know this is still on offer. On Thursday there will be some free talks on e-publishing. There appears to be interest in XML but PDF will probably be in there somewhere.

Net browsing beats going out in the cold
Established retailers, big or small, have to adapt quickly to replace in-store customers
Edmond Warner
Saturday November 20, 2004

Can't quote anymore for copyright reasons. You can follow this link though.

'Denial' ( as described by Emily Bell ) works in strange ways. the Guardian is quite capable of publishing an article about bookshops in which the reality of Amazon and the web is made clear. They still have a problem writing about newspapers or news organisations however, in my perception.

Blackwell's has been a major resource for academic sites throughout the UK. If the web takes over then a) academic books are just part of the CDs etc. b) not sure why the academic sites are worth a visit

Going off topic a bit. My main point is that things are changing faster than appears for newspapers. This will get some attention sometime soon. 'News' is part of the web, just as much as bookselling.

Roy Greenslade at least is considering the web as well as decline for newspaper circulation

http://media.guardian.co.uk/mediaguardian/story/0,7558,1351135,00.html

However, he writes about newspaper web sites as if they have no income such as advertising or the digital editions as in the Guardian. It really is a bit silly to have such reporting. The Guardian seems to have a policy not to mention the digital editions in the UK print version. Apparently they do promote them in the print versions outside the UK. It is up to the guardian if they want to keep the PDF option a secret. But it makes the journalism less than it might be if Roy Greenslade ignores them in an article like this.

News organisations will eventually regard the web as part of mainstream income flows so why not start looking at this soon?

Adobe announced Acrobat 7 today. It seems to be mostly improved presentation and value. Apparently people with the Professional version will be able to create a PDF with commenting functions enabled for people who have the latest version of the Reader. And Elements might be available in quantities lower than 1000. The forms design kit will be included so more people will begin to think about the server software.

Already some people think it could still be cheaper.
http://www.pdfzone.com/news/1903-PDFzone_news.html

Macromedia have something to offer with Contribute. This is priced for volume in a way that education can afford. Contribute allows commenting and also creation of PDF or Flash Paper. Flash Paper loads very fast assuming you already have Flash working. The claim is that Adobe Reader 7 will load quickly anyway. Something to come back to.

Andrew Tribute has now posted PDF versions of his presentations from New Zealand.

http://www.attributes.co.uk/AttributesFrame.html

JDF now official.

Another Guardian article today, this time about the Independent. Again, no mention at all of the website, so the article makes little sense.

Can't find anything on the media site about the BBC or their relation with commercial sites. The print version puts little teasers in without a proper link. The Guardian often has editorial written by or quotes from people who think their web project would benefit from the BBC not doing something. Actually the BBC remains one of the few UK brands that are visible on the web. Also they are clear in that they have a policy to change their means of communication to include the web. Newspapers such as the Guardian may actually have a web policy but they seem to choose not to reflect this in their print copy.

Meanwhile on the webpage is an interesting stat on how in broadband Europe many people spend more time online than reading newspapers

http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,7496,1347160,00.html

There is an article in th Guardian today about possible issues at the FT.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,1346602,00.html

Apparently the media coverage could be cut back because of a lack of advertising.

What is really strange about this article is the complete lack of any reference to the internet, the FT subscription or advertising income from the internet, or the scale of investment in the future FT website. My guess is that future advertising will use a blend of media. News organisations that have relied on print will change. ABC did announce that there will be circulation certificates showing figures for 'digital editions'. The 75,000 subs to the FT website are possibly not counted as 'digital editions'. So it is not obvious from ABC sources how to form a picture of what is happening for particular titles. Do print journalists imagine that these issues will go away if there is no reporting?

OhmyNews has accepted a second story on print and the web. This is headed 'Publishers Awaken to an 'E-Book Society' 2004-11-04 . The news angle of this is a report from AFAICS on e-books. They think the price for e-book hardware will drop to $35 over four years. Guy Kewney believes this will have an effect on paper publishing. 'Things change'.

The first story was based on the ABC decision to publish numbers for 'digital editions' along with print circulations for UK newspapers. This was headed Web Influence on Print Media Growing and was posted 2004-07-28. However since then I think no newspaper has 'opted in' so there are no actual figures.

I think it is obvious that part of the explanation of the decline of newspaper circulation is that more people use the web. Newspapers are now news organisations with a mix of income and cost over print and web. It is about time some accurate numbers were available. As Guy Kewney and others are reporting, publishing through mobile devices is beginning to happen. Newspaper articles on circulation that make no mention of the web will not be credible for much longer.

There will be some more on this in this blog and longer pieces for OhmyNews when more definite information is available.

Reading a couple of magazines picked up as samples from Digital Print World. Usually I rely on the dotprint website to keep up with Printing World. PIRA publications are fairly expensive but digital demand is interesting. The September/October issue includes an article on 'the future of print' that is fairly reassuring. 'The gentle downward drift of newspaper circulation is forecast to slow slightly over the next few years'. I don't find this convincing however. The web has still got a long way to go. And whether or not e-books take off within four years ( see previous post) to say that books will grow by 1.2% over the next decade is potentially inappropriate if technology is disruptive.

In Printing World Rod Hayes reports from Graph Expo and a presentation from William Smythe, vice president of NPES. "The print portion of a printer's revenue has actually been declining for several years now and this trend is set to continue. Unless a printer has been implementing diversification plans, the future is very grim." The decline can be traced back to 1992. The new ancillary services include mailing, fulfillment management, warehousing, DTP consulting, CD-Rom services and forms of database management. The article is titled 'The storm gathers' and fits well with an editorial from Gareth Ward-

"Many have battered down the hatches and have so far survived, but we need to understand that there is a changed landscape out there and that proceeding as we have over the last few years will not be enough to prevent companies being swept away with the next spell of bad weather."

Digital Print World is now an established event. It will influence opinion not just because digital print will grow in proportion to litho. JDF workflows will be standard for all forms of print. Print is part of communications based on the web.

There is almost nothing in Guardian media today about the web.

Since they dropped the bit at the back on 'new media' there has been less and less. But buried away in an interview with Martin Sorrell in a section on 'my media' is the information that 'I find I am reading periodicals less' and 'I consume more online'.

There is a letter from Greg Paine of AOL claiming that in broadband homes people are online 13 hours a week, roughly 12% of media consumption. "It's finally time to realise that broadband internet is both mass market and mass media"

This may be reflected in Guardian media reporting eventually. Still nothing in print about 'digital editions'.

No sign of Adobe. I'm not sure that InDesign is doing so well that the general print market can be expected to pick up on it by default. Quark have sponsored the Workflow presentations and are answering questions with plenty of people on their stand.

Xerox still expect Adobe to ship a plug-in for InDesign and Acrobat that creates a JDF file for each job. At drupa I thought Adobe were a bit vague about this idea but Xerox have a definite interest in hard copy. Maybe when this might be available it will be Xerox where information can be found.

Back in the days of a floppy disc it was thought a bit of a security risk to move files on disc between pcs. Tharsten and Positive Focus however have now started to use a USB keyring to show off JDF. It works fine with a web-based MIS linking in to Creo Upfront. Maybe by IPEX wi-fi will be free everywhere.

According to Alan Dixon from Positive Focus, JDF stands for "Job Done Faster".

The actual title of Gee's talk is


JDF for Dummies

It is remarkably clear as an introduction but also as a statement that JDF is not science fiction, something to think about after the next IPEX, something that might work one day.

DALIM support about 350 sites worldwide where JDF is part of the current workflow.

Links to Guardian talk. Please add something, there could be some explanation needed.

PDF Guardian

What is going on with the 'digital edition'?

http://mediatalk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?50@pdfguardian@.597aa1a3

Oi Printweek Face the Facts

follows Printweek article on Guardian coverage of alleged print decline in London

http://mediatalk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?50@oiprintweek@.77476434

Since some time last year I have been contributing to the Guardian talk board on Press and Publishing as part of Media. During this time the 'digital edition' appears to be live though there is nothing ever about it in the Guardian print version. Just possibly there is a policy about this or else Roy Greenslade is not very interested in the web anyway.

Today Emily Bell writes about 'denial' - her word- as some media folk think about the internet and 'mainstream' media. So far, so welcome.

http://media.guardian.co.uk/mediaguardian/story/0,7558,1335024,00.html

However there is still nothing about the Guardian itself as an example. Like Roy Greenslade she refers to the 'redtop' circulation decline. From the last set of figures the decline for the Guardian seemed to be in the same range as for the Daily Mirror. Anything over 5% a year is interesting.

There was an ABC press release on a decision to publish figures on paid circulation as 'digital editions'. Since then nobody has 'opted in' as far as I can tell. This is only a blog. Obviously Roy Greenslade could find out more if he wanted to.

There is not much point in repeating myself on the Guardian talk board so I will put some content there about XML and publishing. I recently got some feedback from text that was about a year old so the web is not always as immediate a medium as is sometimes supposed.

There is a new phase for this blog, a quote from Gee Ranasinha who I emailed with a quote from Andy Tribute's blog. Next week there will be an update of the http://www.atford.co.uk site. Meanwhile the text of Gee's message is below.

-------------------------------------------
From Gee Ranasinha,
Director of Marketing
Dalim Software GmbH

Regarding Andy T's quote - I've been describing printers as being "media distributors". I think that this better describes their new role in things.

If you're looking for a JDF-based quote. how about the following:

Make no mistake: not only WILL JDF-driven systems be the industry’s future, JDF–based systems ARE ALREADY becoming the industry’s “present”. There are printers today using JDF as a cornerstone to their production processes, and more companies are moving to JDF-based systems every day.

But put JDF into perspective. JDF is a set of rules for vendors such as us to follow when we design new products. It’s also the way that vendors have agreed upon to allow their products to communicate. Our job, as a equipment vendor, is to build systems that offer feature benefits to you, our customers. How JDF is deployed within that system is, to a large extent, irrelevant to the user.

Finally, a word of advice. Many vendors are talking the JDF talk, but there are only a handful of vendors today that can really boast true JDF systems interconnectivity. Vendors such as Dalim Software invest thousands in ensuring cross vendor connectivity by actively participating in all areas of the CIP4 organisation. So take the time to separate the companies who say “JDF Will be” from the companies who say “JDF is”.

----------------------------------

Comment from Will
This is obviously from a vendor point of view but the general interest is in the clear statement that JDF has happened.

Gee will be speaking in the Quark Workflow Theatre on Tuesday and Wednesday (15.20) next week at Olympia. the show is called Digital Printing World but some of the issues relate to printing in general.

Defining Moment in New Zealand

I have added a comment to Andrew Tribute's blog so repeat it here. ( I think the yacht is out of the water now, there was a long pause in this blog but it seems to back on track now)

-------------------------

I am going to take this as a defining moment. There have been many suggestions of a digital print future but this states that the change has happened.

“In my keynote address at the conference I stated that value added services are the key for printers. In this I stated that printer’s business cards should no longer call themselves printers, but instead digital services companies.“

Next week there is a show at Olympia on digital print. Gee Ranasinha will talk about JDF. I had thought that would be a defining moment but now I think this blog entry is a better source, especially as it already exists on the web.

I am taking this a bit seriously as I have been sent a press pass on the basis of my blog at //ipex2002.blogspot.com

It started in 2002 so it’s too late to change the name.

By the way, i think there may be a typo. Do you mean ‘beer’ not ‘bear’? Maybe you went bear hunting as well as fishing for trout…

Posted by Will Pollard on Saturday, 23 October 2004 at 4:04 PM

"You can only hide under the bedsheets for so long. JDF is here and it's real"
Gee Ranisinha is very definite in the current Image Reports.

He will also be speaking at Digital Print World at Olympia tomorrow and Wednesday. One of the benefits of a show that concentrates on digital is that ideas such as JDF are easier to spread. Maybe it will take longer with litho. Frank Romano wrote in Printweek not long ago that there was no obvious return on investment and that it will take a long time for old equipment to be replaced. Unfortunately I can't find the article at the moment but I think one of the points was that print customers can't produce reliable PDF files so probably can't create an accurate JDF. Maybe this is where print management companies offer something, sorting out the technology where print companies don't.

'How to spice up e-brochures' by Ken Young in today's IT Week assumes that print is more or less disappearing. He states that about a quarter of print jobs were lost in the area around the City in Lodon over five years to 2002. This is probably based on a recent report - Understanding the Print and Publishing Sectors in the City Fringe. The Guardian article on this drew a fierce response from Printweek where the BPIF was described as 'angry' and the Guardian take as 'nonsense'.

The report itself has many facts that have to be considered by people concerned with UK print. Clearly something is happening and the web has something to do with it. The original report comments on the state of IT skills in print and management attitudes to training.

Meanwhile the Guardian somehow fails to report the web as a context for print circulation decline. Roy Greenslade today looks at the recent figures without any mention of how websites effect circulation or contribute to income. So far the 'digital edition' remains a secret so far as the hard copy Guardian is concerned.

http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/Corporation/media_centre/files/140_04.htm

Back to Ken Young. He claims that 'people can't be bothered to wait for a brochure to land on their desk' so the web must be a priority. New design resources are essential. 'Sites need to come alive...and not look like electronic versions of dead trees.' Maybe he is being alarmist. Print will continue for some time as evidenced by News International investment outside London. However the reference to Kodak and the speed with which film was replace by digital cameras could be convincing that change can happen.

One suggestion is that managers use the web to make direct contact with customers through weblogs. Next week there is an Adobe webcast intended for financial analysts. This may not be intended for a wider audience but it might be interesting as an example of what is possible. The analysts make a better guess than most of what new products might arrive. There will probaly be more interest in video than in OEM Postscript.

http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/invrelations/conferences.html

Print Now ( issue 4 2004) includes a quote from Lance O'Connell, Heidelberg's UK Manager for Prinect and pre-press products.

"JDF was a hot topic at drupa. it is now becoming a commercial reality and by 2006 automated workflows will have become an industry standard."

This is one of the first signs that JDF is actually happening. It is tempting to believe this is a reasonable assumption about 2006. Once the software is part of an internet speed then this makes a lot of sense.

It will be interesting to see how much communication happens online between print shows. For JDF to become an industry standard before 2006 there will have to be a lot of web browsing for some print companies to catch up woth the "early adopters". In the UK there will probably be two shows as Digital Print World before IPEX. Apparently these will not include litho workflows but actually a digital workflow could be much the same. this blog and the site at www.atford.co.uk will concentrate on the implications on JDF for litho, still the largest part of UK print on current information.

I have updated the www.atford site with a simplified map of IPEX 2006. This shows the piazza as the centre of a loop round the 'heavy metal' part. I think the software part will develop through the web anyway. Such an event is about how JDF works with litho and finishing.

There is a slideshow at Acrobat services dotcom. Adobe Album comes with some suitable lounge music. Closed Loop - Open Piazza.

I am continuing a campaign to persuade Printweek to conside John Cunningham for their 100 list of influential people in UK print. Somehow Adobe and UK print do not overlap that much.

Adobe have announced the release of Designer for forms and other server products.

The report at PDFzone includes a statement from Sydney Sloan, product marketing group manager for server products. The guidance is that these products are intended for organisations with above 500 users. "We're targetting Fortune 500 type companies."

It seems to me that JDF and the print industry do not really fit in with this picture. At drupa there was almost no promotion for PDF Jobready. There have been some reports of a concept around JDF tickets in InDesign and Acrobat. But there is almost no information about how this might work with server software.

The PDFzone article mentions a possible "$100,000 price tag ($200,000 for the Cadillac bundle)" for the "Intelligent Document Platform’s process-management components". Most print companies employ less than twenty people and have no IT department.

So the original idea of the portable job ticket is not going to work out as first imagined. There will be JDF data as well as PDF for copy. But there are many other ways of sending XML data.

Possibly over time there will be a different price level for PDF server software. There may be more information about implementations of PDF Jobready and JDF in InDesign / Acrobat. But other approaches seem more likely in the near future.

drupa 2004 is more or less over

only now do I find out that Andy Tribute has been doing a special blog at

http://www.attributes.co.uk/drupa

Forget this blog. Andy Tribute has been there the whole fortnight.

He seems to have liked Print City more over time.

I have put some photos in a PDF (2 meg) from official sources so the quality is ok

Freehand is still the illustration choice for PC Pro. I have caught up on most hard copy reading. I'm still aware of the web in the background. Macromedia appear not to spend too much energy on exhibitions in real space. Maybe adobe are uncertain whether they should beat an vent such as drupa or not. I still thjink it strange that PDF Jobready was not promoted as far as I could tell.

News in Printweek shows that JDF is having a real effect quite soon.

Taylor Bloxham in Leicester are integrating Creo and Tharsten, as shown at the JDF Parc.

Barney Cox has an extended article on JDF in pre-press and production. He repeats the view from Tim Williams in a previous article - the early implementations will come from magazine printers working with publishers. The article reports on Wyndham Heron and Stephens & George.

The Digital Ad Lab started to look at JDF during Digital Solutions 2002. Once there are a few examples of how things work, the pressure for this to be an option could grow quite fast. There is a benefit for print buyers so they will find some sites where JDF is working, even if there is a long delay before JDF is everywhere.

Back in Exeter. Yesterday catching up with things. Two main impressions now that drupa is a bit distant.

One. The web is till there, even at a tradeshow. Some companies now rely on the web and put less energy into exhibitions. I am still not sure what Adobe was doing there. They were very vague about the JDF input. Maybe they just wanted a chance to talk to different people about a possibility in the future. There was almost no information about PDF Jobready. I am pretty sure Datalogics was not on the HP stand. Maybe the web demo is enough. Microsoft and Macromedia had no stand at all. However, dotnet is in the background at the JDF Parc and Dreamweaver is assumed for the XMPie web option demonstrated on the Xerox stand.

Two. Some things have not advanced since IPEX 2002. At that time Pelagon showed how collaboration aspects of Acrobat could be used for mark-up and comment on proofs and designs. Maybe the costs of Acrobat are too high for enough people to have access to this. I did not see any signs of anyone using this at drupa. Drugs development and architecture are areas where it could be afforded maybe.

Also no sign of Printme. At IPEX there were several chances to try it out, spread around most of the halls. Maybe broadband has not arrived as expected. Checking the site it appears that most of the Printme sites are in the USA.

Now in Koln for the day. There will be more of a report around Sunday when I'm back in Exeter.

I spent most of the time in the CIP4 JDF Parc, Hall 4. It connects to most of what is happening in other halls so you tend to go back there. Optimus and Agfa are there from Print City. Xerox has no stand as shown in the printed guide but they do several presentations. Xerox FreeFlow turns out to be largely JDF, working closely with Creo and Adobe. Whatever the plugin for creating JDF data from InDesign and7or Acrobat is called, the Xerox expectation seems to be that it will be available fairly soon. It is presented as a part of FreeFlow as if FreeFlow is current. This would suggest the plug-in could be released as such, without waiting for a new release of Creative Suite. That might be eighteen months away. Maybe the timescale depends on feedback.

Several stands within the JDF Parc show the logo for Objective Advantage. CIP4 seems to be sharing specification updates and Objective Advantage continues to support JDF. See link for Seybold Hot Pick from 2002. http://www.oai.cc/default.asp?FeatureID=4&SectionID=12&RedBoxID=48 Sorry you will have to copy this in. There is ádwatch´software on this machine that blocks pop-ups of any kind, even the Blogger helper. Can't remember html any more either. This may be edited next week.

It turns out to be quite hard to find Adobe in the Heidelberg space. Even Kodak is not clearly identified as such. As yesterday, my impression is that Heidelberg are not communicating their contribution to JDF. They are working with Adobe and in future JDF from InDesign or Acrobat will work with Prinect but this is not at all obvious from their current display.

The best place to find Adobe is the JDF Parc in Hall 4 (with an excellent poster courtesy of Heidelberg). There is a chart showing other locations where Adobe crops up. I keep going on about Adobe as they seem to be the central company for digital connections with print. InDesign is now well accepted. XMPie have chosen it as their core page output software and apparently they find there is at least one copy on most sites. If the JDF Parc is too full to navigate ( Adobe is right at the back) then Print City also has a space explaining how JDF could work with InDesign and Acrobat.

Still no sign of JobReady or Datalogics. I had thought that Datalogics would be on the HP stand. ( see the website (http://www.datalogics.com/news-events.asp) as a source for this) Can´t find them so far.

However Triplearc have a small space showing software for variable data. At IPEX 2002 they had a much larger stand showing software for JDF input online. Discussion on why print management works in the UK and how long it will take print customers to understand JDF is a bit off topic for them at drupa but they might find time for a discussion. (HP Hall 4 C23)

Have arrived in Cologne and found the way to Dusseldorf. This is the closest I could find a hotel. Much going on here so I hope to take Saturday off.

The wonderful press office have accepted my hard copy versions of this blog and the WWW.atford site as evidence of my credentials as a journalist. So I have access to the full press release list and can join the queue for web access. This is written from a small internet cafe in Cologne. I feel less worried once I have completed the journey back. this could change over the week.

So far there has been a major presentation by Heidelberg. They fill Halls 1 and 2 and have always been a major part of drupa. The demonstration were mostly about new versions of their Speedmaster but the press releases included one on working with Adobe on PDF. Somewhere in the Heidelberg stand, probably as part of Prinect, there will be a demonstration of how to create JDF data from InDesign and Acrobat. Previously i had only heard about this as part of Print City.

Heidelberg are committed to JDF and talked about it a lot. One problem seems to be that they only show it working with their own products. In answer to questions they offered to take anyone to actual sites where other suppliers were part of the workflow, for example Agfa. But there won't be much except Heidelberg in Halls 1 and 2. So the JDF story may be more convincing in Print City and elsewhere.

I have updated the Acrobat Services websites as relevant for drupa, where I am headed next week.

The dotcom site has a photo from Seybold Amsterdam. I think it is ok to concentrate on drupa and hard copy for the next fortnight. In theory the dotcom site is supposed to move on to PDF on the web, forms etc. This will come back as an emphasis once there is more agreement on JDF. This could be during the first week of drupa.

The www.atford site has a map of drupa concentrating on the bits that relate to PDF.

This blog may not get updated for a week or so depending on whether I find some access and / or can work out what to concentrate on. But there will be an update soon.

I don't think PDF Jobready will be a major priority for Adobe at drupa. Their emphasis was on ways to input and display JDF from InDesign and Acrobat. Information about Jobready was through the stand (booth) for Datalogics. At drupa they will be part of the HP space. Hall 4 , stands C23 and D47.

One really good development was that that contacts were made to expand the support for the Acrobat User Forum. The AUF has announced a meeting on June 2nd to look at issues arising from Seybold. There will now also be involvement from the BCS Electronic Publishing Specialist Group and from XML UK.

The meeting will include an update on the defra case study on reader extensions, and a look at how Enfocus and Global Graphics have approached the issues of how to connect JDF with PDF. I will be speaking about how quality links in with this. As the meeting is at the IQA in London there could be others with a view on quality as well. My view is that the discussion on 'intelligent documents' could start by including some established ideas from quality theory.


The day will start with David Brailsford and a revised version of his keynote at Seybold. This overview of content and structure includes more reference to SVG over time. Acrobat users probably won't mind being SVG users as well. There is a guess that some SVG is already included in the Adobe Reader, as it now is.

The idea of co-locacating Seybold and XML Europe has worked out really well. It would be very positive if this happened again. The Job Definition Format discussion is based on XML support. It is not essential to understand this, but most of those closely involved seem to.

Medialive International have been criticised for some of the changes around Seybold, but this XML link is creative. Maybe the discussion needs to expand to maintain some momentum.

There are some details to work through however. It was possible to switch to the XML conference for a session but the timings did not overlap well. It would have been good to hear the session from HP and Reportlab on how the schedule was printed but there were several other Seybold sessions at this time.

SVG has turned up a few times during the conference. It may be the XML alongside ( see next post ) At first it was suggested that SVG is ok on screen but has no idea of what a page is like. However it turned out that the speaker from Apache Software Foundation was very intrerested in hard copy. Jeremias Maerki ( jeremias@maerki.org ) showed several cases of output to PDF and Postscript. See the website at http://xml.apache.org/fop/

The main project is for an XSL-FO. Sorry, I don't really understand what this is. It takes data in XML format and describes how to display it. Something like that. There were some robust comments in the conference about whether the Apache version works very well. The version number is FOP (0.20.5) so clearly there will be a better version. As far as I could tell the process that went into PDF was working ok. Suited for black on white text, data output sort of thing. High end CMYK colour maybe a long wait. But maybe some print company will be able to cope with RGB one day.

SVG seems to get support partly because it is an open standard and written in XML so linking to data is possible. Chuck Myers from Adobe pointed out that PDF is an open standard in that several other companies offer software that creates PDF. He made the fair point that PDFlib for example offer software to create PDF from data 'on the fly'. However the mood seemed to be that if SVG became well supported it would be easier to make a suggestion through committees rather than waiting for Adobe to release a new description of PDF.

Link for ReportLab

http://server.reportlab.com/cgi-bin/xmleu2004.cgi

If you're not at Seybold or XML Europe you can't actually visit any of this but you would see how XML works with a publication. XML will be part of Seybold in San Francisco and it seems likely there will be something in Amsterdam in 2005.

The Seybold Amsterdam event is benefiting from being co-located with XML Europe. Much of the discussion overlaps. Reportlab are offering a personalised schedule for XML Europe and later they will have some presentation with HP Indigo. As part of the XML apparently. More on this later.

'Later' could be Thursday.

http://www.jdf.info

The word is that this site will be updated. As of two clicks ago it was all about a Seybold in 2003.

But check back later. It will be updated in the near future.

Just one of the promises during the CIP4 day on JDF. My impression is that there is genuine wide support for JDF to work.

Some jargon, new to me. Interoperability Conformance Specifications. (ICS) . These are a way to check whether 'pairings' actually work. GATF has agreed to do tests once the specifications are agreed. It seems that ones for MIS and digital print are the furthest advanced. The Networked Graphic Production approach seems to have been to move on without waiting for the spec. But their experience has been fed back.

During the day it was suggested that the ideal recruit for pre-press would have some knowledge of web design, including PHP and MySQL. Quite a change from the attitudes in pre-press some time ago when the question was whether PDF could ever be made to work. There is support for JDF in the print industry. My guess is that the doubts will disappear quite quickly.

Apparently there will be a JDF roadmap for distribution at drupa. This document is so massive that it is impossible to fit on a slide and there was no announcement of a version for download. Maybe it involves some complex folding.

Just to say I have found Easy cafe so there will be a report from Seybold Amsterdam maybe tomorrow.

The printed description promises a 7 minute version of what will be on show at drupa from a PDF point of view.

7 minutes each speaker that is, hour and a quarter in all. There may be other things going on tomorrow but there will be a report later this week.

Still thinking about whether JDF is ready for print to take it up. This blogging approach seems to work as a way to think. I may change my mind later but here's a link

http://www.triplearc.com/

At IPEX 2002 they were one of the most definite in presenting JDF. Maybe the response from print companies has been slower than they hope for in buying the software, but the print management aspect seems to be going ok.

Things move a lot faster than would be convenient for a print investment schedule spread over time.

Reading more from Andrew Tribute's blog I find some reservations about JDF

http://www.attributes.co.uk/blog/archives/000021.html

Also there is a surprising comment from Frank Romano in this week's Printweek
I have risked a short quote on the WWWatford site.

There is a lot to do to persuade the print industry to support JDF. Whatever Frank Romano thinks about the customers and their ignorance, these are the people who place the orders. In the UK I think it was when the Digital Ad Lab understood how a PDF workflow could help them that the print companies actually invested. They are studying JDF. Maybe all the software companies trying things out should consider print management. They can offer a front end that customers expect, then sort things out for however print companies want to work.

It turns out that Andrew Tribute is now a blogger. Actually the archive shows he started in Feb.

The blog form allows some frankness of a kind that might not get published in print.

He has some comments on Seybold relocation, for example.

http://www.attributes.co.uk/blog/archives/000019.html

This blog will now probably become a whole series of links to the Andrew Tribute blog. I never did understand the colour of laser beams anyway. Go directly to the Attributes site for an exemplary use of Flash at a minimum and now a blog update on drupa day by day. Or whenever there is something to write about.

another test

There should be a new comment feature, courtesy of BlogBack.

More follows on this week's Printweek. Simon Eccles reports on what to look for at drupa by way of MIS and workflow. Also digital cameras are on a level with scanners in a purchasing survey.

It turns out that Macromedia have plans for server software and that forms are part of a 'rich media experience'.

The name is Flex, as announced at the Flashforward animation event, but aimed at the enterprise.

There is no announcement of a Macromedia presence at Seybold Amsterdam. Maybe they are not yet ready. There might be more information at Seybold San Francisco. So meanwhile we need the web as well. Macromedia may have given up on real time events.

There is an archived conference call from Adobe, available for another couple of weeks.

Bruce Chizen is asked to comment on the discussion at AIIM on linking digital print and 'intelligent documents'. He mentions the history of Postscript and the links Adobe has, but he seems to concentrate on office production rather than pre-press for litho. He mentions HP and Xerox. They will both be at drupa but there is something different here to how drupa used to be.

Figures show some growth now for the server products aimed at 'enterprises'. OEM Postscript sales are not really growing. Because Adobe has been central for the printing industry since Postscript came out it is sometimes forgotten that Adobe's main interest is software.

I still think it is ok to leave this blog as IPEX2002 even though it is about drupa.

At IPEX the CIP4 day on JDF did not include much from Adobe. There could be more in 2004.

An update on Transit was recently announced. PDF Jobready could be widely used but this will depend on pricing. However, print has not been forgotten in the rush to sell server software for entrerprises.

There is an MIS show coming up in Birmingham.

PDF Brochure

The way computing and the web is impacting on print has changed the role of MIS. The computer system covers every part of print production so the MIS is just one part of this. The main issue is how the MIS system can cope with this when it needs to fit with something else.

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

Previous post was misleading in suggesting that Imprinta has disappeared.

Checking the site, it is just that the dates moved from 2003 to 2006.

http://www.mdna.com/shows/imprinta.html

I still think that a three year cycle for a show such as this is not the best approach for software issues. It could be annual but on a smaller scale.

So my guess is still that this coming drupa is a pivotal event. It has a very strong base in print as it has been. The online aspects are probably growing in such a way that such an event will not happen again in the same form.

See comments from Christian Gugler, Chairman of PrintCity’s Networking Activity Group. He has explained that the plans announced for drupa have "profound importance to the industry as a whole."

“Networking is far more important an issue than simply communicating small pieces of job and system data. As we look further ahead, at PrintCity we see that networking is also the essential prerequisite for structural change at a strategic level in the graphic arts industry."

“The industry must move beyond its traditional role as a creator and supplier of printed items, to become a provider of cross-media services. In that context, PrintCity’s Integration Centre and print factories show the clear paths to the future.”

There is an article by Frank Romano at i-grafix.

This suggests that the proportion of print jobs where the internet plays some part in the procurement will rise from roughly 20% at the moment to 80% by 2007.

This would mean that the Adobe take on 'Network Publishing' would make a lot of sense, though possibly not in 2004 as originally claimed when the concept was first promoted. Creo are now working on ideas around 'Networked Graphic Production' . Adobe is one partner with this and there is reference to Network Publishing as a related idea.

My guess is that this will mean that the 2004 drupa is the last one in this format. The four year cycle around drupa assumes that the machinery is the important feature. If the web is significant and print only one option for communications, then there will be many shows around the web that will contribute to discussion. I am not sure what happened to Imprinta. My guess is that this could have been a more frequent event between drupas, with an emphasis on software. In the UK, Digital Solutions and Digital Print World have shown there is a demand for shows around digital print that also cover workflows relevant to all forms of hard copy. Frank Romano's article suggests that the web will be involved in 60% of print procurement by 2006. What will this mean for an IPEX? It could be a very different show.

Previous post about the lack of stands at drupa seems to be largely wrong.

I am now a bit hesitant about making comments on the main webpages. Seems to be ok in a blog though. The drupa site did announce that all the space had gone and I did check the list at the time. So any future text could be wrong also. At least a blog can be updated.

Adobe will be at A33 in Hall 04 and A44 in Hall 6. This seems to be close enough to both Print City and the Networked Graphic Production around Creo. At IPEX there was a small space within the Xerox area as well.

Quark will be at A28 in Hall 7. No sign yet of Microsoft or Macromedia. At Digital Print World, Olympia last year , Microsoft showed a determination to establish Publisher as mainstream for pre-press. Maybe most people at drupa already know about this.

One of the Seybold keynotes will be about how graphic design should cover web, TV and hard copy. More about this later. People I meet working on the web often use Macromedia products so this has to be part of the discussion. Maybe Macromedia only wants to reach a web audience. Freehand remains a great way to produce hard copy. PDF files seem to be quite small for one thing. This could be pointed out more often.

Adobe will have a stand at Seybold Amsterdam, also hosting a day for developers.

This is a bit of a surprise. Last year the official Adobe presence seemed a bit limited. There were people there but they seemed to have turned up anyway, maybe in their spare time.

The day on e-forms will be relevant for JDF though it seems nobody will be using PDF for forms linking in to JDF. The server software is too expensive at the moment.

However the e-forms discussion will contribute to an advanced web services agenda. It had seemed that the European emphasis on hard copy would be a bit boring. In the buildup to drupa though, there will be no harm in going through the case for PDF and JDF one more time. Quark and Microsoft will be there so there could be a software discussion ahead of drupa. On the stands listing it seems that Adobe, Quark and Microsoft have left it too late to book a stand.

It has taken a while to get back into the year, but writing may be more frequent now.

The Institute of Printing had a debate just before Christmas. I will write it up while I can still remember some detail but this won't be for a few days. I had to leave before the end to get back to Exeter but I did hear the main argumnets.

Although the motion that the print industry no longer needs skills was defeated, my main impression was the strength of the case that digital technology is now accepted for litho workflows as well as digital print as such. There was no attempt to argue against this, just the argument that new skills are needed for this approach to work.

On PDF, it was even claimed that most print customers are nowadays creating files that cause few problems for pre-press and that any issues around a lack of understanding will be cleared up soon. My own guess is that skills around tact and training will be needed to make print workflows seem less in need of skill than is actually the case.

http://www.linst.ac.uk/news/2003/lcp_lcc.html

London College of Printing is now the London College of Communication.

This seems a key event for the week of the Digital Print World. Other digital issues creep in, like film studies and web design. There is another show called Digital Solutions where the word print is not featured. Both shows could develop towards 'communication' as something wider than print. The gossip in the Guardian has been that the London Institute will have the word Arts in the new university title.

--------------

Some links for the ready4print service. It is a joint venture between a graphics firm Q|Solutions, and a software firm - Class Act
www.qsolutions.nl
www.class-act.nl

The Amsterdam Exchange has an impressive set of photos. This seem to be the spot where the service is hosted.

-------------------

There was no new information from Adobe about Transit. Possibly one reason is that the forms server software is still fairly expensive. It is sold with other systems through companies such as IBM Global Services. Maybe the price levels that would make sense for printers are not appropriate at this time. The Courier approach includes Jaws software to create the PDF. The licence allows a charge per job sent rather that an upfront cost for each site. A PDF form might be better in many ways, but it is expensive at the moment. Similarly the collaboration tools in Acrobat are still very useful for discussing changes to artwork but the costs are limiting the extent to which this is used. Pelagon seem to have stopped promoting the support of WebDAV for collaboration. They are working with Heidelberg though on another application based on Jaws Courier.

http://www.pelagon.com/portalsolutions/digitalprint.htm

Smartech website

http://www.smartechuk.plc.uk/about.htm

They are supporting the "office" including this web access...

Just discovered 'The Office' with web access. one terminal only but not many people are using it. PrintMe is part of this but there are few actual places in the UK where PrintMe is available. Maybe five Hiltons. So not much has moved on since IPEX. There could be a wider launch early next year.

Ready 4 Print have a nice Flash website now in English to explain how their web services take on Courier works. It should be on their website sometime next week. Currently only on their stand as part of Positive Focus. It is now unlikley there will be a UK server as the Amsterdam one is connected very close to the Amsterdam internet hub and is quite quick throughout Europe.

www.ready4print.com

Jaws PDF Courier seems to be getting further. Pelagon are using it as a basis for Web 2 Print, presented here as part of the Heidelberg approach. Positive Focus continue to offer ready4print. Apparently Global Graphics offer Courier as a software development kit so there are various ways that the job ticket information could be sent that relates to each PDF for copy. Some form of XML could be used so it should be possible to relate this to JDF. Maybe some requests from printers would encourage this.

Pelagon
www.pelagon.com

Microsoft have now booked a stand (64) at Digital Print World. This is a new stage in the integration of print and corporate IT.

So far not booked are IBM and Macromedia.

IBM have announced a new range of Infoprint kit aimed at a 'data centre' but with speeds that could compare with some instant print sites.

Freehand was mentioned in the Pintweek review of Adobe's Creative Suite by Simon Eccles. It remains a good option for page layout but somehow Macromedia never gets round to turning up at a hard copy event.

Actually the topic on a PDF version of the Guardian had not got lost. It was moved from 'BBC' to 'Press and Publishing'.

Very sensible too. I started it in BBC not realising how many sections there are. I thought it was all media. So some comment will be there not in this blog.

Other contributions have started to look at the Times as well as the Telegraph. There will be a log of reader experience. I still think the Guardian should say something about what they intend. July is a while ago now. And surely other media could report on this? The Telegraph is not promoting the Active Paper option all that widely as far as I know.

It is being suggested that Jakob Nielsen might be influenced by work with Macromedia in his views on PDF.

http://www.pdfzone.com/news/111303nielsen.html

http://www.planetpdf.com/mainpage.asp?webpageid=2002#monday

I don't think this is in any way true. Jakob Nielsen is just wrong, that's all. His views on PDF are longstanding and consistent with his other views, in general that it is better tyo use the oldest technology available and to assume the users know nothing and and are not prepared to learn. Also text in itself is probably all that is really needed so graphics could be avaoided as they may cause problems.

Jakob Nielsen has stated that PDF is ok, for content to be printed out.

Meanwhile if Macromedia will support PDF that is to be encouraged. They may get a PDF 'ankle biter' by mistake with eHelp but let's hope they continue it.

http://www.ehelp.com/products/robopdf/downloads.asp

Digital Print World indicates a new stage of acceptance for PDF in the UK. The scope seems to be limited to digital print but actually the discussion around this will include workflows for litho and also the web.

I need to rearrange the content of websites for Acrobat Services UK and WWW.atford. So far the UK site has assumed low bandwidth and concentrated on hard copy. the dotcom site assumes broadband. The print opinion parts of Acrobat Services UK can move to WWW.atford as archive. The UK site will still assume low bandwidth, but cover topics that need broadband. The UK now has better potential so the requirement is for some content or use.

I have done two small PDFs. One links a Print opinion stream to an IOP event in December. One promotes the aspects of the Workflow Cinema at Digital Print World that I think are most interesting.

There is an Education Guardian article today about pocket computers as could be "harnessed for learning". Very sensibly the research starts with how they are already used for games, music and text messages.

Strangely Professor Mike Sharples makes the following statement. "We're not in the business of replacing books." Well, why not? Sorry, since the topic about a PDF Guardian disappeared and I have moved on to be more of a blogger, the temptation is there to go into rave mode anyway.

Elsewhere in Education Guardian it is reported that funding will be adjusted so that subjects like computer software and media studies get less. Costs are assumed to be lower so there can't be many new G5s being bought. Is there an incentive for universities to invest in e-learning? Will funding be adjusted later to compensate those that are still using an older approach?

'Blended learning' will include some books but they don't have some special position that cannot be questioned. Just as, the Guardian can exist both online and as print. It is worth talking about.

Copied from
http://www.ojr.org/ojr/glaser/1068169487.php

"
Iraq Today's Web site was down all this week. But I spoke with Mina Corp.'s advertising liason in the U.K., Caroline Binns, who told me the newspaper was very much still in business, but that Web access is switching to subscription-only and will be up again next week. Binns called it a "small technical problem" and said that anyone interested in getting a PDF version of the paper, can e-mail her at caroline@minacorp.com for two free trial issues. After that, the price is $200 per year.

Binns told me they've sold "hundreds" of subscriptions, and said the newspaper had a print run of 15,000 copies. "The motto of the paper is the 'Independent Voice of Iraq,' and we have angered some people in the military and the CPA [Coalition Provisional Authority]," she said. "The reason we publish in English is so that Iraqis can have their voice heard by the CPA."

"

sorry this was just a repeat. Still learning about 'post' and 'publish'......

Somehow the topic about a PDF version of the Guardian seems to have disappeared from the Talk section of the Guardian website. It was in media under BBC. I started it in BBC by mistake but it seems relevant. A BBC archive of programs should have back issues of The Listener in PDF.

Back in July, Emily Bell was online for a chat about the paid for future of Guardian content. Mention was made of a 'digital edition' though there was little detail other than a price of about £98 per year. This is a reduction on the print version but still a number that implies some value.

I have added some messages since and also changes to a news story on the Acrobat Services website. Recently I have tried to provoke some contibutions from Guardian staff. Partly I am puzzled by what is going on. Partly it seems the coverage in media and online rarely considers how digital technology has an impact on newspapers.

My most recent message was about an article by Roy Greenslade on declines in newspaper circulation. What is striking is the lack of any web context. There was one article a while ago when he visited Brighton and found that a fire led to interest in a local news website. But Roy Greenslade rarely mentions the effect of increased time spent browsing the web.

IanD on the Talk messages told us about a Telegraph offer that turms out to be based on ActivePaper from Olive Software. I have tried this for the best part of a week and it seems to work ok. The content is based on PDF or Postscript as from the print version. There is no direct PDF on offer but you can print to it including photography and illustration.Unfortunately the Sunday version does not include the colour magazine.

Maybe it is just my closed world as a Guardian reader, but I don't think this Telegraph offer is well known. The Guardian has not featured it at all, so far as I know. Apparently the Telegraph lost about 20,000 buyers in October. At 2% of 890,000 this could just be the small number of people who have managed to find out about the online offer.

This situation seems to me to well worth reporting although print media seem to stick to print all too often. There is a conference coming up linked to Digital Print World. Subjects include how The Guardian can use digital technology in support of distributed hard copy. surely the discussion has moved on a bit. The web is an option as well as competition.

The circulation figures may not be the sign of an 'ice age' to threaten 'dinosaurs'. But there are some issues that should be discussed.

This blog started as IPEX 2002. It will continue loosely connected with how PDF and JDF have an effect. Recently Adobe have announced even more XML support than was evident at IPEX. 'Network Publishing' is a context in which print reconfigures as part of something else.

The slides are now available in PDF format from the Acrobat User Forum presentations at the Workflow Theatre during Digital Solutions

www.acrobat-services.co.uk/auf

I was invlolved in these meetings so may not have a sound perspective. My take though is that they coincide with a new stage in the UK when there are examples of aspects of PDF previously reported on the web as existing elsewhere. Actually the Defra forms will not be online till next spring.

The site at www.atford.co.uk has been updated with some information on Digital Print World. This event looks more interesting as new stands are booked. Adobe will be part of a Workflow Cinema. Presumably this will be different to a Workflow Theatre with frequent requests to 'show the video please'.

It will be interesting to see if Adobe offer new information on Transit. Jaws Courier is available through a web service but Adobe seem not to say much about job ticket information. It used to be part of the PDF. There is much talk of 'document solutions' but these are intended for enterprise in general. Many print service providers are too small or medium to get much attention.

I am thinking about a longer opinion style piece on the Institute of Printing annual debate in December. They are disputing whether the print industry still needs skills. Often this reflects a view that skills are not what they used to be. If the people who create PDF are to get the same consistency of results from litho that they achieve with an email attachment there will be a need for some new skills. The print industry needs to understand support for distance learning. Also how to organise preflight and inspection while remaining polite.

Digital Solutions has been over for a couple of days and I am beginning to get an overall take on it. There could have been more people there and this may be because the expectations and promotion mismatched on what was there. The Digital Camera Show was not promoted as such. Maybe more management types attend a workflow show if they think there won't be too many anoraks looking for cheap cameras. I'm not too sure about this as actually quite a range of people look at what is on offer. So the camera stands were still there and getting interest. Fuji was the main brand represented with their own stand.

However the conventional litho mainstream was probably not there in large numbers. The workflow presentations from Agfa and Creo should have had massive audiences based on the content. Networked Graphic Production (NGP) is a concept that is under development. The Apogee X as described will probably not change much before Print City at drupa. So the workflow theatre was a chance to look at how JDF can work. Reports of rivalry between an NGP camp and Print City seem to be exaggerated. Actually most JDF systems can work with each other as well as any XML standard works with Microsoft.

The scope of Digital Print World is limited to digital print but issues may come up such as workflow for litho and moving content to the web.

Maybe there is a question for all print exhibiitons, though this is hard to assess. drupa is fully booked. Even if IIR develop an annual digital show over the next three years there could still be many people in the British printing industry who will concentrate on the mechanical engineering available at IPEX.

Brief news from Digital Solutions

Jaws PDF Courier can create and deliver reliable PDF with job ticketing. Positive Focus are distributing this and offering a web serice - ready4print. There is currently a server based in the Netherlandsand one expected soon in the UK.

There will be a presentation about this on the 22nd in the Workflow Theatre at 3.40

------

Although there is not officially a Digital Camerta Show this year, there are several stands with digital cameras. For example A.J. Purdie have stocks of Nikon, Canon and Sony.

Another test, seems to be working ok.

Long gaps in this blog are because I update the sites for www.atford and the Acrobat User Forum. I do get confused as to which opinions to put in which spot but this seems to be ok so far.

I am going to project a year forward on the Acrobat User Forum site so the content for this year's Digital Solutions meetings makes more sense. So far the emphasis on structure and server software has not really got much attention from the graphics professionals or at least the media who think they understand this audience. The response of the people at the workflow theatre will be interesting. By next October the JDF aspects of workflow should be better understood. PDF forms online will be used more widely so some priont companies will be included. Graphic designers will need to understand how to use material both for print and online.

The www.atford site is to imagine this sort of future. I have started to include news stories such as one on Global Graphics and JDF. My impression is that Adobe have lost some focus on hard copy. There is not much detail in the UK on how they relate to JDF. Transit seems to have disappeared without any explanation. In time there will be something coming through Digital Print World so this can be updated later.

I have started a discussion topic at Planet PDF

Please add in any comments there

More follows during next week

Digital Solutions Exhibition: 21-23 October 2003 - London ExCeL

This is a test of the direct blogging feature on my new Google toolbar

Links to event coming up soon. More later.

The Seybold event is settling into some sort of perspective now that I am finding other sources of information through the web and magazines. It seems that Adobe are being quite selective in where they promote the new server software. an article on PDFzone comments on their lack of presence at eGOV in Washington. Meanwhile they have attended a SAP conference so presumably this is the sort of environment where the pricing makes sense. The US Army have made extensive use of PDF for forms.

Maybe there will be more to say by the time of Seybold San Francisco. For example, is Transit to be updated or publicised? I would suggest the order of events happens in reverse to the sequence in Amsterdam. Start with a panel discussion on whehter the server software is on a pricing level that any normal person could consider. Allow time to study the Adobe website if there is no other source of product detail. Then discuss with CIP4 members if the XML job ticket information could be part of the PDF or somewhere else. Then ask the Gilbane content management discussion to cover this as another example of what they are looking at. If this order can't fit with the schedule, maybe something can develop online meanwhile.

http://www.pdfzone.com/news/101799.html

http://www.gilbane.com/gilbane_at_seybold_03.html

http://www.seybold365.com/sf2003/conference/

http://www.cip4.org/activities/schedule.php

http://www.adobe.com/products/server/main.html


Printweek reported the Amsterdam JDF discussion at great length (June 19th) and supported the idea in an editorial. It has become clear that the Seybold move to Europe has connected with European interest in hard copy. The next Seybold Amsterdam in April 2004 will be just ahead of DRUPA so more will be known on how JDF is likely to be implemented. this blog will resume around the time of events but the issues will also be reflected in websites that are updated more slowly.

websites

http://www.atford.co.uk (imagined destination for UK print)
http://www.acrobat-services.co.uk (print emphasis)
http://www.acrobat-services.com (assumes bandwidth)

events

Digital Solutions
http://www.ondemandexpo.co.uk Digital Print World
http://www.digitalprintworld.co.uk/

If you're not convinced about JDF / PDF by now, you have at least two more chances before 2004.