 |
Night work: A Portable Document Format-based workflow sends high-resolution images from digital cameras and scanners to layout workstations, where pages are assembled. The high-resolution file is then submitted to the Adobe Acrobat Distiller server, where pages are created for the imagesetter as well as for a page archive and use in on-line products. |
The ins (ads) and outs (pages)
of PDF: Workflow that works
It began life as a convenient way for users of dissimilar computer systems -- say, Mac to PC, or PC to UNIX -- to exchange digital documents like correspondence and memos. It was supposed to be the vanguard of the "paperless" office.
Though the Portable Document Format (PDF) as envisioned by Adobe Systems Inc. may have started out simple, it is now a complex beast offering a multitude of challenges and rewards.
Today, the use of PDF abounds at newspapers in as many ways as it is possible to use PDFs. From receiving color advertisements, to digitally archiving the newspaper, to posting Microsoft Excel spreadsheets on the company intranet, to downloading the newspaper to a reader's hand-held device, PDF affords the electronic workplace the adhesive to bond it all together.
PDF acceptance at newspapers for pre-press work was kick-started by the Associated Press in 1994 when its AP AdSEND began delivering national display advertising material to newspapers as PDF files (see The Cole Papers, August 1994).
With the undercurrent of PDF usage flowing strongly through the pre-press side of the newspaper, it is almost a natural evolution to initiate a digital workflow based on PDF. Last May, San Jose-based Adobe released Acrobat 5.0, which includes numerous enhancements for PDF creation and eases the transition to a PDF workflow environment in pre-press.
When Adobe released Acrobat more than 10 years ago, it was more or less an evolution of its ubiquitous PostScript page description language, which had become the de facto standard for digital newspaper page output. Standard or not, PostScript was in fact a programming language, and a verbose programming language at that. Initially, the internal project for PDF was called IPS (Interchange PostScript), but it was a PostScript that created smaller, faster and more flexible files.
While Acrobat -- the application -- is at Version 5.0, PDF -- the format -- is only at Version 1.4. In addition to Acrobat -- the full-fledged application for creating, editing and publishing PDF files -- Adobe has the free Acrobat Reader, which allows the viewing of PDF documents on any type of computer, even personal digital assistants (PDAs). A digital file in, for example, Quark XPress must be output as a PostScript file, which then must be passed through Acrobat Distiller; in most environments, Distiller is run on a server where it can be reached by all pre-press users.
In 1996, Adobe released Acrobat 3.0 with numerous pre-press features, including support for the Open Pre-press Interface (OPI) low-resolution image replacement framework and the ability to generate forms.
This year's latest release includes, among many new features, transparency support, 128-bit encryption for improved security and support for Adobe's new eXtensible Metadata Platform (XMP). XMP embeds metadata -- information about the file itself, much like the information in an editorial or advertising front-end system's header -- into a file using the open standard eXtensible Markup Language (XML).
XMP adds another layer of file information on top of what the PDF already preserves, such as layout, fonts, colors, graphics and text formatting. Much like PDF itself, Adobe has published the particulars of XMP and is encouraging application developers and systems integrators to use it. While Acrobat 5.0 was the first Adobe application to support XMP, the company says that all of its products will soon be XMP-compatible.
Acrobat 5.0 also includes digital signature functionality, spellchecking down to form fields, customizable toolbars, tighter integration with Microsoft Office, batch processing and enterprise deployment features. Acrobat 5.0 is priced at $249 for the full version and $99 for an upgrade.
"The PDF format has evolved so much," said Gray Knowlton, a product marketing manager at Adobe, "that it's much more than a pre-press solution."
Indeed, Acrobat offers off-the-shelf capabilities that newspapers previously could only get from systems integrators. Knowlton said that even some advanced production systems are now building in PDF. With Acrobat 5.0, Adobe is working on making the PDF files even smaller, which is why one of its focuses is now on the e-book market.
"The e-book format offers significant opportunities for newspapers," Knowlton said. "The e-book format allows yet another distribution of the product."
Adobe capitalizes on its pre-press knowledge and extends that into the network computing area with Acrobat and InDesign. "The new era of network publishing allows people to publish to any device," said Michael Wallen, another product manager at Adobe. "It's a framework for cross-media publishing."
Pagination and remote printing
While PDF allows content to be published to virtually any device virtually anywhere, newspapers have begun using PDF in-house to develop pre-press digital workflows.
With the growth of remote printing and increased use of pagination, newspapers have lost a lot of the checks and balances that were in place with a manual page makeup system. Tracking page flow digitally is essential to a newspaper that is fully paginated.
Digital workflow is a natural evolution in the pre-press environment and PDF only makes it a more facile process.
Essentially, a PDF workflow consists of receiving ads that are already in PDF form (such as those from the aforementioned AP AdSEND ) or converting them to PDF when they arrive. They then are imported into a pagination system, where the editorial text and graphic elements are laid out, then full pages are distilled and RIPped on the way to output. Those same PDFs can be reused, both as files distributed from the newspaper's web site and as entries into the archive system.
Of course, that's the simplified version that doesn't include details such as setting resolutions, line screens, registrations, page setup and the all-too-common troubleshooting when a graphic drops out during output.
PDF workflow helps to streamline the current pre-press process, but it is also a step toward the fabled computer-to-plate (CTP). "You have to have a soft-proof solution before CTP," said Slade Wentworth, imaging manager at the Miami Herald. (Soft proofs appear on a computer screen, hard proofs appear on paper.)
The Herald, which is 100 percent paginated using the Coyote Layout application from Net-Linx Publishing Solutions of Ann Arbor, Mich., and Sacramento, uses a PDF workflow.
"It's a homegrown workflow," said John Fiedler, director of development for the Herald. "We began in February of this year with creating PDFs automatically."
The Herald wanted to create PDFs for the whole newspaper. Now it automatically generates a PDF for each page that is raster image processed (RIP).
"Fifty percent of our products were being created as PDFs," said Fiedler. "We might as well save these off to archive and do it for the entire newspaper. The things you can do with PDF are so massive."
In the wake of the recent terrorist acts and Hurricane Michelle, Fiedler said that PDF is at the heart of the Herald's emergency plan. "You can send the PDFs anywhere," he said.
The benefits of a PDF workflow were almost immediate.
"Saves a great deal in repurposing," Wentworth said. "It eliminates incoming paste-up work, we have good pre-flighting tools and we can generate reports which we now do for digital ads."
Paginated, 100 percent
Pat Coen, vice president of production and technology for Community Newspaper Co. of Needham, Mass., said CNC is 100 percent paginated using Quark XPress, and is also using PDF workflow.
"We've been using PDF workflow for about a year and a half," Coen said. "We build 4500 broadsheet pages a week using QuarkXPress." CNC produces more than 100 daily and weekly newspapers, shoppers and specialty publications that serve most of Massachusetts. It also has a network of more than 200 web sites.
Like the Herald, CNC is using Acrobat and PitStop Server from Enfocus Software Inc. of San Mateo, Calif., for pre-flighting and post-flighting needs. Pre-flighting is the process of checking a PDF file for its ability to reproduce at the point of creation; post-flighting is used to check a file once it has arrived at the printer or the publisher. Pre-flighting is an area that can be customized and automated to some degree.
"We don't really use PitStop as a pre-flighting tool," said Mark Panorese, production technology director for CNC, "we use it more for post-flighting."
Panorese led the move toward PDF workflow at CNC, as well as being the architect for its implementation.
"I pushed for PDF workflow for transmission reasons," he said. "The time it takes now to output a page is dramatically less. The time is really noticeable when a correction has to be made on a page. Prior to PDF workflow, it would take 30 minutes for some pages to RIP."
"We use [PostScript] Level 2 RIPs with Acrobat 3.0 compatibility, which is Pdf 1.2 on our Harlequin Rips," Panorese said. "And we have much better RIPping results."
"The push to go to PDF workflow was efficiency," Coen said. "We have five different pre-press sites and two presses."
Both Panorese and Coen agree that whether it was gaining time for pushed back deadlines or saving film, PDF workflow was going to offer up some savings. CNC realized immediate savings through the ability to soft proof. "Soft proofing has reduced film waste," Panorese said. "Also, we were able to decrease the amount of errors that slipped through to output."
The Herald also does remote printing, and pushing PDFs to a remote site is much easier and faster because of the built-in compression technology.
With forms capability and digital signatures, Fiedler sees advantages in page tracking. Currently the Herald uses a web browser-based page tracker for page flow. It allows the newsroom to check off when pages are done and ready for output, and shows if ads are in and whether or not they have gone to film or imaging.
Robust servers needed
One recommendation Fielder has is to run a robust Acrobat Distiller server for the PDFs. Server configuration is an area where CNC has seen improvement.
"We put the Distiller software on Macintosh G4s," Panorese said. "We then put those on the 100-megabit backbone. It runs pretty good. We run our spoolers on UNIX stations that gather the files, then it gets FTP'd [File Transfer Protocol delivered] to a G4 running the Distiller software, and then we soft proof and then the PDF is dragged to a hot folder on the RIPs."
Both CNC and the Herald set up PDF workflow without the need for third-party systems integrators. This is one of the major advantages in the direction that Adobe is venturing. As Adobe offers more open source applications and standards, it empowers the user sites to develop what they need.
There are plenty of systems integrators and suppliers offering workflow modules, but the cost can be prohibitive. Many newspapers are taking advantage of open source applications and plug-ins. Linux, for example, has inspired a few network administrators to look at options other than Microsoft. The Herald's page tracker is but one example of developing the necessary tools in-house rather than expending shrinking supplies of capital.
Adobe has been doing a bit of talking recently about courting the newspaper industry. With its announcement of XMP to tag documents better, its new releases of Illustrator and InDesign, and its approachability, many are turning to Adobe to fine tune how the paper gets put together.
"Newspaper integrators have always been working on workflow," Adobe's Knowlton said. "PDF did the same thing in a shorter time period. It's an open format that integrators can build with."
In addition to the advantage of using PDF for a workflow, Fiedler sees more opportunities for repurposing; echoing that of Knowlton. Fielder also sees the benefits in the repeatability of a PDF -- you don't lose anything from generation to generation.
"We can use PDFs for e-tearsheets," Fiedler said. "Knight Ridder is also exploring using PDFs for e-tearsheets." (See The Cole Papers, November 2001.) CNC also is pursuing a more full-time use of e-tearsheets, Panorese said.
PDF offers a cornucopia of possibilities for newspapers in regard to workflow, archiving and reusing content. The flexibility PDF offers in the area of reuse in these challenging times allows newspapers to think creatively, instead of scurrying around to find the money to pay for new ideas. "PDF is the universal solvent in this environment," Wentworth said.
While the paperless office may not have come to pass, it is looking increasingly likely that a paperless workflow for publishers is a reality that can work and will enable a faster, more reliable publication process for the "daily miracle."
-- Jason Zappe, jz@colepapers.net
Adobe Systems Inc.,
(408) 536-4281, (800) 833-6687;
Enfocus Software Inc.,
(650) 358-1210,
e-mail: info@enfocus.com;
Net-Linx Publishing Solutions,
(313) 677-4700,
(916) 929-9481,
e-mail: sales@nxps.com;
Quark Inc.,
(303) 894-8888,
e-mail: cservice@quark.com.
| 