Job Definition Format (JDF)
News and reviews
Every day, we hear about companies enjoying the benefits of implementing a JDF-enabled workflow. Here are a few examples.
Feature articles
Digital Publishing Solutions
In the article "Streamlining Print Production: Print Workflow is in use in the Advent of Full-Blown JDF," Kim Crowley shares interesting market forecast data from an April 2007 InfoTrends report. "The report examined a number of software categories that make up print production workflow, including creative/layout, production workflow management, print management information systems (MIS), print controller/RIPs, variable data, print e-business, and prepress solutions. In North America, this market was valued at an estimated $3.4 billion in 2006, and is expected to reach $5.6 billion by 2011, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.7 percent. The production workflow management component constituted about 16 percent of this market, with a value of $550 million in 2006 and a projected value of $1 billion in 2011." Industry experts, including Adobe's Lonn Lorenz, share their thoughts on the current state of print production workflows.
PIA/GATF announces JDF User Group
PIA/GATF hosted its first JDF User Group meeting March 24–25, 2008, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and has plans for the group to meet three more times at different locations throughout 2008. For information on how to join, or for information about future meetings, visit the JDF User Group website.
WhatTheyThink.Com
Wondering what's new in the world of JDF? Cary Sherburne interviews David Zwang about a large U.S. State Department project that has a JDF component. Zwang reports, "Our web-to-print solution, which has JDF in the background, is about to go live. We haven't done a big promotion of the service yet, but so far we are doing two-sided multilingual business cards, certificates, note cards, and we are now working on some basic newsletter/brochure kinds of things using Adobe InDesign as the composition engine and some stuff we have developed internally for web interaction and transactional activity."
OnDemandJournal.com
In this feature article, Adobe senior product manager Lonn Lorenz discusses the web-to-JDF-to-print workflow. "In the fast-paced world of online printing, automation is a must-have, not a nice-to-have," notes Lorenz. "Success in this environment would be impossible without automation. Customer information and job instructions must be captured up front in an electronic job ticket — there is no margin and no time to support phone calls back and forth to clear up misunderstandings. JDF fills that bill and then some. JDF not only serves as the electronic job ticket, but can be used to enable other types of automation as well."
Special feature: Automation
Daniel Greivell offers this update on the adoption of JDF workflows: "The good news is that the technological means to implement digital workflow is likely already in place at most printers and binderies. The reason is that most probably have some kind of MIS function. In addition, since JDF is XML based, utilizing existing partial solutions such as Print Production Format (PPF) from CIP4 and Portable Job Ticket Format (PJTF) from Adobe, the average operation could initiate digital workflow relatively easily and cost effectively."
Pressroom color: Controlling press color from prepress makes runs more reliable
In this article, Hal Hinderliter notes, "No longer a disconnected link in the digital production chain, on-press color measurement and advanced workflow systems built on PPF and JDF are bringing new efficiencies to the print manufacturing process — and flowing the benefits of prepress color management into the pressroom."
A JDF success story
Harry Waldman details the efficiencies that Williamson Printing has realized since implementing a JDF workflow. He adds, "Clients can easily make JDF files using Adobe Acrobat 7 Pro, and from InDesign using the Adobe Creative Suite 2. This is significant; it not only automates the process from the customer's desktop, but leads to solution selling where the printer becomes a partner with their customer instead of just a vendor."
Press releases
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