Joint Development Underway of New PDF-X.com Website MARBLEHEAD, MA – June 18, 2002 -- DDAP Association, a key industry group charged with promoting the "Universal Exchange of Digital Advertising through Open Process Integration and Accredited Standards," and SWOP (Specifications for Web Offset Publications) Incorporated, a graphic arts industry leader focused on ensuring consistency and quality reproduction in publications, announced today that magSend.com is now providing development and hosting services for both their websites. DDAP and magSend will also collaborate on developing a new vendor-neutral website highlighting PDF/X, a standard accredited file format for data exchange. As a provider of digital ad workflow solutions to publishers and strong supporter of accredited standards, magSend.com is a welcome addition to the team as DDAP and SWOP upgrade their websites. “Having magSend.com provide web support for both organizations will make the sites a better resource for their constituents as well as the entire industry,” explains Barbara Hanapole, executive director of DDAP and SWOP. “And, working with a company that is a strong PDF/X advocate to develop the new website is a definite plus!” "MagSend learned of this project through our involvement with Digital Ad Lab," adds Mark Weiss, president of magSend.com. "We were impressed with the DDAP Association, and their efforts to promote the universal exchange of digital advertising are absolutely in line with our mission statement. We are excited to be working on the DDAP and SWOP websites, as it is a logical extension of our work in the publishing industry." The reworked DDAP website will include new features such as a search engine and shopping cart. "The search engine was one of the features I would have liked to see when I first visited the DDAP site," says Weiss. "With this added capability, a person will be able to search on ICC color management, display all the references to ICC color management on the site and quickly link to any one of them." Weiss sees the development of www.pdf-x.com as a key portal for the dissemination of information on the PDF/X standard, products, and services. The creation of a new vendor-neutral website highlighting PDF/X was made possible through the generous donation of the www.pdf-x.com URL by Apago, a software development company that has been instrumental in the implementation of this new standard in the graphic communications industry. “We envision this site serving as an open platform where both participating vendors and end users can post PDF/X-1 information, learn about new implementations of product and services that support PDF/X-1, and discuss issues relevant to its adoption,” reported DDAP Chair Alan Darling. “DDAP commends Apago for their continuing commitment to open process integration and accredited standards through this donation. Apago president Dwight Kelly is a member of the Committee for Graphic Arts Technology Standards (CGATS) committee that developed the PDF/X-1 standard and his company has taken a leadership role in promoting wider adoption of this standard.” Dwight Kelly adds, “Apago’s philosophy is to resolve workflow problems instead of putting out fires all day. As a participating company at DDAP’s 2002 Annual Conference, we recognized the impact our URL, www.pdf-x.com could have on the industry and made the decision to donate it to DDAP. We are excited to play an important part in the ongoing promotion of PDF/X-1 as an accepted and widely used industry standard.” Vendors and end users of PDF/X are invited to contact Barbara Hanapole at b2marketing@attbi with content suggestions for the pdf-x.com website including new product and services that support PDF/X-1.