New standard will make it possible to describe how a printed piece should look

Cambridge, UK - A new ISO task force has set to work on producing a PDF standard to guide production workflow decisions and will make it possible to describe what a final printed piece is supposed to look like.  

The new task force is being chaired by Global Graphics’ CTO Martin Bailey and has been formed in response to requests from transactional printers to be able to include media selections and simplex/duplex controls in a PDF file. 

When the PDF/VT Competence Center in the PDF Association reviewed this request they concluded that the benefits of a suitable solution would apply across the entire printing industry, not just in variable data applications.

Martin Bailey comments, “the new standard will enable graphic designers, file creators and buyers to describe how their final work should look without having to specify the details of the processes required to make it. The thought process is that the digital front end (DFE) on a digital press can map from that to the actual steps needed.

“As a simple example, a request for a specific substrate should be fairly easy to map to an entry in the media library in a DFE and therefore to tray selections (on a sheet-fed press) and to installing the correct ICC color profile. In closed loop workflows such as web to print the first mapping shouldn’t be necessary at all, because the media selection will be pre-populated from the same data as the media library.

“Our first goal is a standard for graphic arts, but there has already been discussion of following on with equivalents targeted more specifically at packaging and at wide format. If you’re interested in getting involved please contact your national standards body and tell them you want to work in ISO TC130/WG2/TF5. If you don’t know who to contact in your country, drop me a line and I’m happy to make introductions.”