Adobe’s PDF - surveys are conducted on the product, seminars are dedicated to it and print professionals everywhere know about it. In fact, the phrase “PDF” is one of the most popular searches conducted within our site archive. The product has probably matured past “buzz” status, but the technology continues to be developed by Adobe and others who want to participate in its growing acceptance.

One outgrowth that clearly has the interest of many printers is PDF Transit - a product Adobe says was developed specifically for print providers. PDF Transit is a PDF creation and web submission software developer toolkit that provides “a simple, secure, and reliable” Internet-centric workflow.

Rebecca Aquino is Senior Product Manager, Internet Printing Group. Aquino manages the PDF Transit product and has 17 years experience in developing various printing products including PostScript. She has spent 10 of those years at Adobe. Aquino is passionate about the future of digital printing and Adobe’s role in helping companies and individuals communicate digitally.

Adobe Systems is a familiar name to most people involved in the graphics arts. Now 20 years old, the company has expanded beyond its origins of creating fonts and page layout software into the second largest PC software company in the United States. It now offers software solutions for print, video, Web, wireless and broadband.

WTT: Last fall Adobe announced PDF Transit. Tell us about the product and describe who would best benefit from using it.

Rebecca Aquino: PDF Transit is a client / server based PDF creation and web submission software developer toolkit that provides a simple, secure, and reliable Internet-centric print on- demand workflow. It allows the end user to intuitively submit a PDF from the application print path directly to the print providers Web server using a Web-based job submission utility with on line job ticketing. It’s simple to use and creates a print-ready PDF file, plus the files are automatically encrypted to ensure data security.

We developed PDF Transit to help one segment of our customer base--print providers. In the end, though, it helps our customers’ customers, too.


WTT: How do you define digital content? How does it relate to printed materials?

Rebecca Aquino: Digital content is any material or information that can be put into digital format. At Adobe we see no conflict between putting content into print and into digital formats. In fact, we often see customers doing both.


WTT: Your research shows the volume of digital content increasing over the next decade and beyond. Tell us a little more about that data.

Rebecca Aquino: Using information from the Rochester Institute of Technology, CalPoly and Clemson University, Adobe estimates that the volume of digital content will increase 8% to 15% annually for the next twenty years or so. Meanwhile, print volumes will increase only 2% annually and actually lose market share to digital content.

At the same time, though, we see that people will want to access content in digital form and that this increased mobility and the Internet will drive the need to provide content on-demand. We want to provide our customers with the means to create, store and retrieve content in a form suitable for multiple media. Adobe’s PDF is one of the important formats that we’ve developed for this purpose.


WTT: What are some of the other trends that you see?

Rebecca Aquino: Print providers are looking for ways to expedite workflow and turnaround. At the same time, there is a movement toward a new type of customers--people not necessarily trained in how to prepare a file for print. These customers are more apt to use Microsoft Office files to prepare documents than a page layout program.

We are also seeing a lot of our customers’ customers asking for things to be done very quickly and an increasing number of last minute jobs. Because prepress professionals haven’t prepared the jobs, there are often lots of problems that have to be corrected before the job can be printed. And the customer often will want to use the document in digital form later on, as well.


WTT: How big of a deal is it for the print provider to have to correct problems in the file?

Rebecca Aquino: It can be a big problem and a real drag on overall productivity. Say, for example, the print provider spends 15 to 20 minutes correcting problems with a file, even that small amount of time can significantly reduce the number of jobs that can be done in a day.

In fact, our research shows that a typical print provider could effectively double its productivity if it could eliminate the 15 or 20 minutes spent on correcting problems that are affecting the print job.


WTT: So the goal is to find a way to make it harder for the print provider’s customer to make mistakes?

Rebecca Aquino: Yes, and to relieve them from having to learn skills that are not part of their regular job. To help streamline workflow and head off problems, print providers have tried asking their customers for jobs in a variety of file formats, including PostScript and native file formats but still the files come in with problems that take valuable time to correct. Problems such as missing fonts, missing images, and so on.

PDF files help correct the problems of missing fonts and missing images, but you need the full version of Adobe Acrobat to create PDF files and it’s hard to instruct customers to create a PDF file for print correctly. There are so many variables for them to know about and handle correctly.


WTT: And PDF Transit helps solve the ideal file format problem?

Rebecca Aquino: PDF Transit was designed to help our customers (print providers) solve all of these challenges. The print provider uses it to create a Web-based file submission routine for customers that removes the need for PDF file creation expertise and makes it easier to submit the file electronically.


WTT: How exactly does PDF Transit make it easier?

Rebecca Aquino: Let me walk you through a sample job to explain. The first time a customer uses the product, they download the client software from the print provider’s Web site. They double-click to install the software and then they are ready to send in a job.

When they are ready to submit a job, they don’t even have to exit the application they used to create the file. The PDF Transit client software looks and feels like a print driver and appears as a print destination on the customer’s computer. All the customer has to do is select PDF Transit as the printer and proceed as he or she would to print a job on a local printer. The PDF Transit software takes care of the rest of the process, including creating a print-ready PDF file and sending it to the print provider’s Web site.

Before they submit the job, they can preview it as a PDF file and even print a proof on their own printer. If the print provider includes a job ticket feature, then the customer would fill out a simple and short job ticket form that is automatically attached to the PDF file.

That’s it. No need to exit the program, no need to create a PDF or a separate job ticket. Plus the files are automatically encrypted to make sure they can’t be read if they are intercepted in transit to the print provider’s Web site. The print provider is able to read the files, of course.


WTT: Can a print provider customize PDF Transit?

Rebecca Aquino: Absolutely--we are working with two companies now that have opted to customize the product and include features such as log-ins and customized job tickets. We are also talking with OEMs now about creating products that use PDF Transit and we will be talking with system integrators soon.


WTT: Tell us about these two companies and what they are doing with the product.

Rebecca Aquino: Servador Incorporated provides online private auction and Internet print on-demand products and services. Adobe has licenses PDF Transit to Servador for use in its Webprint product. The product is an enterprise print service platform connecting corporate users to internal print services.

With PDF Transit working inside of Webprint, end-users can quickly and easily submit print-ready files to an on-site print center or outside commercial printer. They can also proof these documents on-site or even remotely.

Alphagraphics has incorporated PDF Transit into its new AG PDF Express service, which allows customers to connect directly to their desired print shop via the Web. Available to Alphagraphics customers starting in early June, customers will be able to send their jobs for printing using a reliable, secure format.



Thank you Rebecca. We look forward to hearing more from you and Adobe in the future.