Ghent Output Suite announced
The Ghent PDF Workgroup (GWG) announces availability of the Ghent Output Suite, designed to help professionals determine whether PDF files are behaving as expected in graphic arts workflows.
publishing
The cross-media publishing paradigm creates new problems, such as in the area of workflow management and layout. The section covers desktop publishing, layout design, dynamic publishing technologies, cross-media publishing workflow automation, and much more. This is the core section of IT Enquirer.
Enfocus previews PitStop Professional 7
With this new version of PitStop Professional 7, the company has finalised the process of ensuring that all Enfocus applications are available within its own core PDF library, a robust technology platform bringing customers greater stability, consistency and speed.
PDF Workflow Best Practices
Julie Shaffer is Director of the Center for Imaging Excellence. She presented the “Meet the Perfect PDF” presentation at “Momentum in Print”. Shaffer started with explaining what a “perfect” PDF is. The perfect PDF is one made with the final output in mind. That implies there are as many perfect PDFs as there are usages for them: office print, high-end lithography, display, soft-proof, multimedia, web-ready form…
One idea that Shaffer launched is that poor quality original content will always result in poor quality PDF, but good quality content files can also result in poor quality PDFs if they aren’t created properly with the intended output in mind.
Transparency in DTP, a Practicum by Claudia McCue
There are many sources of transparency: Photoshop native files, and Illustrator native files can have opacity and blending modes generating transparency. But InDesign pages can also have transparency in placed artwork, or even by setting different opacity and belnding modes in page elements. Finally, PDFs can have transparent elements set by original applications.
The question now is how to print those transparent elements without problems on a typesetter or digital printing press. Claudia McCue gives the answers.
Graphics Design and DTP Workflow
Adobe held the Momentum in Print 2006 event in January. Gary Cosimini, Adobe Development Director, took the occasion to talk about the future of the Graphics Communication Workflow. But the word “workflow” can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. Cosimini therefore started his presentation by offering an overview of who is connected by workflow.
He started by pointing out that everyone is connected in the graphics workflow: editorial and layout, photography and video, advertising creative and production, prepress, multimedia and web (and mobile), DAM and archiving, and finally design and writing freelances. A workflow is a chain of events, or an organisation of steps one takes to arrive at a desired result.
Inclusive Design an untapped market opportunity
Inclusive Design is defined as the integration of the diverse needs of people with sight, mobility, cognitive and dexterity problems into new product design and development. It looks like there is growing interest for inclusive design as demonstrated by the shortlist of ideas and prototypes from contenders for the Design Business Association’s (DBA) Inclusive Design Challenge 2005-2006.
A fire extinguisher; an innovative software programme; packaging that talks; a nomadic lifestyle trolley; an allergy alert system and a dedicated on-line employment research resource are vying for the award. Now in its sixth year, the DBA’s Inclusive Design Challenge, organised in association with the Helen Hamlyn Research Centre at the Royal College of Art (RCA), and sponsored by Scope, the national disability charity for cerebral palsy, which advocates and promotes equality and independence for disabled people, has wide ranging implications and opportunities for society and commerce. The winner will be announced on Wednesday 22 February 2006 at the RCA.
Linotype FontExplorer X Review
FontExplorer X is LInotype’s idea of a font manager for individuals. This magnificent piece of code is only available for end-users, and for free. The downside of this is that you will not find a FontExplorer for workgroups which can be deployed in client/server environments. If you need that kind of functionality, you’re bound to leave FontExplorer X for what it is and turn to either FontAgent or Suitcase Fusion. That’s a pity because, contrary to what your gut feeling might tell you, FontExplorer X is one of those rare free things that are actually better than the software you have to buy.
Linotype states the idea behind FontExplorer started after its developers discovered that none of the existing font utilities could do everything that is required or desirable by those who work with fonts every day.
FontAgent Pro 3.1 Review
Insider Software just released version 3.1 of their font management software. Version 3.1 is said to be much faster with auto-activating fonts. Our tests with InDesign CS2 prove Insider right. But there’s more than this update than just performance. There’s better handling of Postscript 1 fonts as well, and a little more control in the hands of users.
Suitcase Fusion’s launch now brings the total of serious font managers to three: Suitcase Fusion, FontAgent, and Linotype FontExplorer X. FontAgent has long been the worst of all font managers, but the last two years, Insider Software has turned this application into a small gem.
Suitcase Fusion Review Update
Extensis released Suitcase Fusion a couple of weeks ago. Suitcase Fusion has become the long expected hybrid between Font Reserve and Suitcase XI. The interface is the one of Suitcase XI, but much of the new power comes from Font Reserve, including the font vault, FontSense and the ability manage fonts just as if they were photographs, images, or other digital assets.
In fact, Suitcase Fusion applies the Digital Asset Management paradigm completely with its capabilities in terms of associating meta data with fonts much like the meta data you can associate with images in Portfolio or Aperture. Our first encounter with Suitcase Fusion was not very successful. This in-depth analysis shows we were wrong in most of our conclusions.
Suitcase Fusion First Look
Extensis only recently released Suitcase Fusion. Suitcase Fusion is the long expected version which includes the best of Suitcase and Font Reserve.
European Union To Boost Competitiveness of the European Print Industry
The publishing industry as the Commission defines it in its staff working paper comprises four sectors:
- Newspapers (37% of output)
- Magazines and journals (32%)
- Directories and databases (6%)
Online media, though growing in importance, are not part of the publishing industry regulation by the Commission.
SoftCare to present preview of new version of K4
At IfraExpo, October 17th to 20th in Leipzig, Germany, SoftCare will present a preview of K4 Publishing System version 5.6 at stand number 2H805.
