[EDITOR’S NOTE: Neither G7 nor GRACoL are standards. They are IDEAlliance specifications and guidelines. G7 is a method that works within ISO and allows you to be at ISO standards, but in and of itself is not a standard. We apologize for any confusion this article may have created.]

In the course of my work, I interview a wide variety of owners and managers of printing companies. Increasingly, I hear them speak about the role standards and specifications play in improving the quality and productivity of their operations. JDF. SWOP, ICC, ISO, GRACoL … and more recently, G7. All of this alphabet soup can get confusing—do we really need to be paying attention? And now there is one more to worry about—G7. What is that, anyway?

I decided to hook up with GRACoL co-chair Gerry Gerlach to find out. In addition to his role as GRACoL co-chair, Gerry is the Color Manager at Windsor CT based Integrity Graphics where he has worked for 19 years. Gerry and the team at IDEAlliance developed the GRACoL specification. Now in Version 7.0, the GRACoL is well-established and there is a documented and consistent methodology that will allow printers to leverage it to match multiple devices to each other for a consistent and predictable printed outcome.