Brmm! Brmm! Brmm - Print Engine revs up: magazine feature article

The lights are green and the race is on to introduce the Adobe’s new PDF Print Engine (PPE) as the driving force behind the new generation of graphic arts workflows. When it was announced at IPEX last year, the idea of PPE attracted immediate support from major suppliers who have since been eagerly beavering away to incorporate what it offers into their own systems.

So will 2007 be a watershed year, a year in which everything changes (again) and, if so, when can we expect to see it happen?

That depends. Because Adobe only supplies the architecture and leaves it up to the individual OEMs to build their own systems, when you actually get to see PPE in action will depend on your supplier. Fuji Xerox, for instance, is not officially making any announcements about PPE. Agfa, on the other hand, will start beta-testing its new :ApogeeX 4.0 workflow incorporating PPE in March/April with a view to a full commercial release in August/September.

Fujifilm is further down the road with PPE at this stage and will be showing its new workflow based on PPE at PrintEx in May. Rather than incorporating PPE as an upgrade into its existing PostScript workflow, Celebrant, Fujifilm is making a clean break and offering XMF as a new product. Terry Crawford at Fujifilm Australia says the company has committed major resources to developing XMF including 50 developers dedicated solely to getting the project up and running. The results, he says, have been startling including files that would normally have taken minutes to process using an Adobe PostScript RIP going through in seconds.



So what will it do?


While implementation will vary from company to company, there are two basic aspects to what the PPE will offer. Firstly, there is the ability to output using native PDF files. That means, for instance, there is no longer any need to convert PDF files to PostScript prior to RIP’ing to film or plate (or elsewhere). This eliminates problems that can occur during conversion, particularly with transparencies, fonts and colours (no more flattening, no need to convert RGB pics to CMYK).

Equally, the same PDF files can be used for proofing or digital print output without any alteration to the content.

Indeed, one of the claimed benefits of PPE is that it allows the PDF file to remain truly device independent, which was originally one of the benefits for going PostScript in the first place. Since then, however, life has become a good deal more complicated, what with digital print and online outlets competing with and complementing traditional output. Now, PPE is being designed to ensure that whenever a job is re-purposed, the same PDF file can be used for a variety of output devices without the need to recreate the file from the original application such as Quark or InDesign. One file, many outputs.

This ability of PPE to go anywhere is certainly foremost in the minds of developers. Garry Muratore points to the ability of ApogeeX to drive other production workflows, not just computer-to-plate or computer-to-film.

“Already we offer excellent interoperability with Indigo digital presses and we will use ApogeeX to drive our own digital press offerings in the Dotrix and the M-Press,” he says.

Terry Crawford also raises the possibility of integration across Fujifilm’s various markets such as using the same workflow to output to Inca wide-format devices as well as Luxel CTP devices.



And lo! the perfect PDF


One of the ways in which PPE allows this cross platform and device integration involves the other major development of the architecture; its use of JDF job tickets. In effect this means that the content part of the file is contained within the PDF while the job instructions such as colour space, trapping information and imposition requirements are conveyed in an accompanying JDF file.

The idea behind this separation of the job instructions from the content is the need for increased flexibility of output. For instance, let’s say you have a 16-page file in PDF format. Depending on the availability of press capacity, the decision as to whether to impose it for four-up output or eight-up signatures can be left to last moment by making changes to the JDF instructions without touching the contents of the PDF at all. The PDF remains device-independent while the JDF file determines how it should be output.

Terry Crawford points to other potential uses of the JDF job ticket. For instance, the printer can send a JDF ‘job bag’ to the designer who then simply attaches the PDF to it and sends it back with all the job instructions attached. Moreover, before the file can be sent, it is pre-flighted and any errors highlighted so they can be fixed at source by the designer. No more backwards and forward with files; the printer gets only the good stuff. I can see the smiles already.

Adobe claims a number of other benefits such as the ability to make late-stage changes to the PDF file and the fact that a common rendering technology is used for both PDF creation and output, ensuring greater consistency between how objects appear on-screen and on the page.



PostScript RIP (Rest in Peace)?


So is this the end of the road for PostScript? “Definitely not,” says Michael Stoddart at Adobe, adding that there will still be applications where PostScript is more suitable and where the inherent advantages of PPE, such as late changes and portability, do not apply. After all, PostScript workflows are a mature, proven technology, unlikely to be abandoned overnight, and there will always be instances where its demonstrated predictability will be preferred.

Equally, Stoddart doesn’t expect the impact of PPE to be as revolutionary as the original PostScript, pointing out that when PostScript first appeared there was nothing else like it on the market; PPE is more of an organic development resulting from the widespread use of PDF files today.

In fact, Stoddart believes that the true impact of PPE may not be known for some time; in years to come, we’ll be able to look back and identify as yet unknown print applications that were made possible by the implementation of PPE.

Gentlemen – start your engines.