Adobe Success Story

End-to-end Adobe PDF workflow
Australia’s University of Southern Queensland (USQ) is a leader in flexible learning and prides itself on its strong profile in regional research. As a multi-campus institution of higher education, USQ offers undergraduate and postgraduate level programs to more than 26,000 internationally based students who can choose from on-campus, off-campus, or online study. USQ’s flexible delivery methods are bound together by common values that put the student first, focus on employment readiness for graduates, and builds strong community ties.

Printing Services at USQ provides a wide range of printed materials, finishing, and binding services for university academic and administrative entities, as well as for trade and government customers across the region and interstate. In an effort to gain efficiencies and streamline processes, the print shop upgraded its prepress system from polyester to metal plates, installed a new prepress workflow system, and moved from a manual workflow to a full Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) workflow.

Benefits

• Cut raster imaging processing time in half
• Eliminated need to flatten files
• Reduced proofing time
• Ensured inclusion of print elements from all Adobe Creative Suite files
• Accelerated prepress process for faster job turnaround

Project Details

Streamlined, reliable processing
From the customer’s viewpoint, the improvements to the new proofing system are invisible. Previously, prepress was hit and miss according to McLachlan, who had to spend an inordinate amount of time double checking to make sure that elements did not get dropped off flattened files. “I’m not worried about proofing jobs like I was before,” he says. “The Adobe PDF Print Engine natively handles everything a designer can throw at me.”

For example, the printing shop produced an 88-page book celebrating the 40th anniversary of a noted USQ art course series. The project’s graphic designer included a broad range of leading-edge transparency effects in the multi-page file created with Adobe InDesign CS3 software—drop shadows, feathering, and more. Rather than have to flatten the native InDesign file and then check to see if each item blended properly, McLachlan was supplied with an unflattened PDF file with live transparency intact ready to go into the new proofing workflow. While basically invisible to designers, the new process instills confidence that creative efforts will be reproduced accurately.

To start the pre-press process, it’s simply a matter of dropping the PDF file into the :ApogeeX workflow system, standing back, and letting it render a perfect proof. “We still check the file and get client approval, but we’ve eliminated a series of multiple checks and balances,” says McLachlan. “The Adobe PDF Print Engine makes the entire pre-press process much simpler and faster—giving us the peace of mind that nothing will change from proof to final because all the steps rely on the same underlying technology.”

Furthering process integration
When the USQ team evaluated options for transitioning to metal plates and installing a new pre-press workflow system to their printing operation, they insisted on including the Adobe PDF Print Engine to drive the new setup. “We quickly realized that the Adobe engine works really hard behind the scenes and does a great job,” says McLachlan, who believes that this new engine will rapidly permeate the print and publishing industry. “It’s the way of the future.” As well, the USQ team knows that the flexibility of :ApogeeX allows updating the Adobe PDF Print Engine at any given time to ensure compatibility with the latest versions of Adobe Creative Suite and Adobe Acrobat.

Agfa’s :ApogeeX 4.0 preserves and maintains the input Adobe PDF unchanged throughout the entire workflow until the final stage RIP. Files remain device-independent and can be easily modified. At the same time, output intents can be changed at any time.

For example, when the shop receives a magazine job, it receives the file as a single document Adobe PDF. “We just drop the Adobe PDF into the ApogeeX hot folder, select the imposition template we want and watch the content automatically flow through the template,” says McLachlan. From there he clicks the proceed button and the paginated magazine is rendered through the Adobe PDF Print Engine for a proof or directly to plate. “It all happens in a couple of clicks.”

McLachlan continues to explain that the process is contained in the industry-standard Job Definition Format (JDF), which acts as an electronic job ticket that essentially travels side by side with the PDF content. JDF describes job specifications including paper stock, finishing options, production color information, and trap and imposition information.

For a busy shop like USQ, the benefits of adopting a workflow solution based on the Adobe PDF Print Engine are far reaching. “The combination of reliability and flexibility means we can get jobs done faster and more accurately,” says McLachlan. “Our new internal workflow definitely results in faster turnaround on jobs and a better bottom line.”

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