Heidelberg, Germany and Ghent, Belgium – August 19, 2005 – Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg) announces that is has joined the Ghent PDF Workgroup (GWG), headquartered in Belgium. The GWG is an international assembly of graphic arts professionals established to create, test, and disseminate best practices and specifications for publishing workflows. The GWG organization is working at the global level to further develop the PDF/X industry standard enabling effective and reliable data exchange between, for example, agencies and print shops. The GWG dictates a uniform standard of excellence in the production and pre-flighting of PDF files for a variety of specialist applications. The specifications are sets of best practices guidelines based on, and compliant with, ISO PDF/X standards; and enhanced with additional guidelines to support different market segments, output processes or workflows. Enhancing the existing (PDF/X) standards with practical, vertical market specifications and best practices allows for more secure and productive digital workflows. "Heidelberg's commitment to the Ghent PDF Workgroup highlights the importance of further developing PDF and PDF/X as a standard global format for data exchange. Additional guidelines, best practices and profiles will further simplify the process of creating and checking print data and also ensure more efficient and reliable data exchange," says Detlef Freyer, Senior Product Manager Workflow at Heidelberg. Erwin Danis, Chairman of GWG says, “We would be hard-pressed to overstate the many benefits we, and therefore, the graphic arts industry, will derive from Heidelberg's membership in the Ghent PDF Workgroup. Few companies bring the breadth of industry understanding and resources to the graphic arts that Heidelberg brings. We are confident that even greater portions of the graphic arts community, worldwide, will review and adopt GWG recommendations and specifications once they become aware of Heidelberg's participation.” Heidelberg develops, manufactures and markets workflow solutions that are based on open standards such as JDF (to describe print jobs), PDF and PDF/X. Checking documents for completeness and preparing these for printing is a core element of the Prinect Workflow from Heidelberg.