AP adopts PDF for graphic distribution

The Associated Press faced a tough dilemma: adopt a new version of a drawing package for graphics that no one particularly likes, or move to an equally complex competing product.

Making the situation more difficult were issues of product ownership, since the AP's favorite program -- FreeHand -- was being turned over to its developers in the wake of the merger of Aldus Corp. (which had marketed FreeHand) and Adobe Systems Inc. (which makes and markets the competing product, Illustrator).

In the waning days of summer, the AP's director of graphics, John Monahan, hinted at a solution (see The Cole Papers, October 1994). On Oct. 14, at the Society of Newspaper Design's annual conference in Kansas City, Mo., Monahan announced the AP's decision.

"In this situation, the choice between these two great software programs was an impossible one that precluded either alternative being the right choice," PressLink quoted Monahan as saying. "So the choice was literally both."

The wire service, he said, would begin distributing graphics in the Portable Document Format next summer. (The AP already had adopted PDF as the format for distributing display ads on its AdSEND system.)

The Portable Document Format (PDF) is the underlying structure of Adobe's Acrobat document exchange technology. It is a subset of the PostScript page description language that includes compression technologies that make PDF files much smaller than corresponding PostScript files.

This change will require a certain amount of work on the part of FreeHand's developer, Altsys Corp. of Richardson, Texas. Though Adobe Illustrator can import and export PDF files, Altsys will have to add those functions to FreeHand.

The result will be that newspapers receiving an AP graphic won't know -- or care -- which drawing package was used to create it, and they'll be able to edit the graphic in the program they prefer to use.

Other graphics providers at the newspaper designers' meeting -- Knight-Ridder/Tribune Graphics, the New York Times News Service and Gannett News Service -- said they would use PDF.

-- dmc

Bit bucket ...
Thirty: Following a triumphant Ifra trade show in Munich, where he was able to discuss the pending merger of Monotype Systems and Berthold into Information International, Peter H.V. Purdy, chairman of International Publishing Associates, stopped on his way back to the United States at his sister's home in Brighton, England. It was there that the 30-year veteran of the graphic arts and pre-press industries died; he was 67. Purdy, who invented the Linotron 505 imagesetter in 1965, had in recent years built IPA -- which includes not only Monotype and Berthold, but also Freedom System Integrators of Wichita, Kan., and QED Technology of Cheltenham, England -- into a group that, according to company officials, "flourished and expanded, increasing worldwide sales and returning a healthy profit." Purdy will be replaced at IPA by David Mannall, currently general manager of Monotype Systems Ltd. of Surrey, England. ...

Multimedia moves: At Pafet, the research consortium of six media companies, David Lipman of Pulitzer Publishing Co. was named chairman of the operating committee. Lipman replaces Patrick Irestone, who had been vice president of new business development at the Star Tribune of Minneapolis; Irestone resigned last month to become president of Spanlink Communications, a Minneapolis company that packages and develops voice-processing systems software and multimedia applications. ... Also at Pafet, Maria McDonald has been named executive director of the operating committee. McDonald had been a consultant with Coopers & Lybrand. ... Also at the Star Tribune, three new editors have been named to work on the Star Tribune Online service, which will start up this winter: Ben Welter, Dennis Buster and Jackie Crosby. Welter has been on the paper's copy desk, while Buster has been assistant city editor. Crosby, a special projects producer at a Minneapolis TV station, shared a Pulitzer Prize while at the Macon (Ga.) Telegraph. ... The Pennsylvania Newspaper Publishers' Association of Harrisburg has created a New Media Ventures Division that will be chaired by Jim Dible, publisher of The Sentinel of Lewistown. Division director will be David Morgan, who is also the association's general counsel. ...

Links to the press: Three appointments have been made at Knight-Ridder's PressLink, the Reston, Va.-based provider of on-line news and graphics. New director of sales and marketing is Michael Martucci; he'd been vice president of marketing at TelePad Corp. and a marketing executive with Apple Computer. ... The new editor of Media Express, the on-line service's daily report, is Martin Casey; he'd most recently been with the Washington Journalism Center. Before that, Casey did a 16-year stint with the American Newspaper Publishers Association after laboring as a reporter with the Waterloo (Iowa) Courier and Dallas Morning News. ... The new chief financial officer of the service will be Jeff Jackson; he'd most recently been the service's controller and before that an accounting executive at the Columbus (Ga.) Ledger-Enquirer and the Myrtle Beach (S.C.) Sun. ...

Real bits: At the Newspaper Association of America of Reston, Va., Debra Shriver has been named senior vice president for communications; previously she had been with MCI's Consumer Markets division. ... Tim Flaherty, formerly vice president of marketing with DuPont Newspaper Systems, has hung out his own shingle and will be consulting under the rubric T.P. Flaherty Associates of Bedford, N.H. Flaherty's long career on the supplier side includes stints with Compugraphic, Hendrix Electronics, Harris, Hastech and Crosfield News Electronics. ... In Scranton, Pa., The Tribune and Scranton Times have named Frank O'Hearn systems manager; most recently O'Hearn had been consulting, but before that he was a systems and editorial executive at the Asbury Park Press in Neptune, N.J. ...

Vendor victuals: Brite Voice Systems of Wichita, Kan., has named Linda Wilson affiliate relations coordinator, Patrick Mileham creative services manage, and Steve McIntosh executive news director. ... At Digital Technology International of Orem, Utah, Vern Crandall has been named vice president of software development and quality control; he has 24 years of experience as a computer science professor at Brigham Young University and 18 years as a software development consultant to IBM, Microsoft, Iomega, Unisys, Levi-Strauss and Sun Microsystems -- in addition to having been vice president of software development at Novell Inc. ... Also at DT, Barry Kruse has been named regional sales manager for the West Coast; previously Kruse had been in DT's sales support group and before that had worked in sales support at System Integrators' Teleco Division in Colorado. ... Edgil Associates Inc. of Chelmsford, Mass., has two new employees: Esther Nelson, formerly of ESE Inc., has been named customer services manager; Jeff Kosiorek, formerly of Orion Electronics Corp., has been named marketing coordinator. ... At Managing Editor Software of Jenkintown, Pa., Mark Niemann-Ross has been named director of third-party development; Niemann-Ross had been a longtime executive at Quark Inc. of Denver and will remain in the Denver area. ... At National Digital Corp. of Falls Church, Va., Nicole Drapeau has been named executive vice president and chief operating officer; most recently she had been with the MCI subsidiary Async. ... Also at National Digital, Warren Holford has been named product manager for NDC's new archiving product and Jacqueline Burton has been named director of marketing. Holford had most recently been a hardware and software consultant; Burton had been with Async. ... At Software Consulting Services of Nazareth, Pa., Edward Houcek has been named vice president of sales and marketing; previously Houcek had been SCS sales manager and before that a longtime sales executive with Dewar Information Systems Corp. ... Also at SCS, Kurtiz Jackson has been named director of project management; previously he had been circulation project manager. ... At System Integrators Inc. of Sacramento, Allan Katzen returns to the fold after a five-year hiatus in which he ran DeScribe Inc., the company started by SII founder Jim Lennane following Lennane's leave-taking of SII. Katzen will head up SII's new Professional Services Division, which will provide customers with outsourcing, application development, network services and customized training for end-users. ...

Confabs: The Graphic Communications Association will hold "Electronic Publishing Alternatives," Nov. 15-16 in Washington, D.C., which will discuss publishing on the Internet or with fax-on-demand. Call GCA with interactive questions at (703) 519-8160. ... Bruce Maxwell, the author of two upcoming books on federal on-line information searching will present a seminar called "Washington On-line: How to Find Free Federal Government Information on the Internet and BBS." The session will be Nov. 21 in Alexandria, Va. Call Maxwell at (703) 532-6327. ... #

"TMS? You're too young to know about TMS."
-- Software developer, speaking to a more youthful integrator.

From THE COLE PAPERS, November 1994, Copyright (c) 1994, All Rights Reserved.