One thing that made the show so interesting was the glimpse it gave us into the future. Print is becoming part of an integrated communication mix, in which it functions alongside electronic media to deploy effective cross-media communication strategies.

Many vendors showed what we can expect in the near future; the number of QR code and iPhone applications was almost overwhelming. While cross-media is not necessarily a new concept, the conversations with vendors during the show confirmed that, unlike Drupa two years ago, there is now real interest from print providers in this technology.

Besides cross-media, another relevant development was Adobe’s PDF Print Engine 2.5 and its support for PDF/VT. The PDF Print Engine has been mainly implemented in offset workflow management solutions, such as Heidelberg’s Prinect, Fujifilm’s XMF, Kodak’s Prinergy, and Screen’s Trueflownet/Equiosnet. Its native PDF rendering capability and its improved architecture provide faster rendering and a higher output consistency of PDF files, especially when live transparency or complex font handling is involved.

Since PDF Print Engine version 2, Adobe has sought to bring the benefits of native PDF rendering to digital workflows. Version 2.5 supports PDF/VT, in which the ‘V’ stands for variable and the ‘T’ for transactional. PDF/VT was developed by the International Standards Organisation (ISO) to bring the benefits of a PDF-based workflow to variable data printing.

Favoured formats
Still a major obstacle to wider adoption of variable data print is the lack of a portable and commonly used file format. PDF/VT sets out to solve this problem. Another benefit, often overlooked, is that PDF/VT enforces a strict separation of content and process descriptions. Process descriptions typically contain job or page control settings, such as imposition, duplex, finishing, handling or other settings. In PDF/VT, those settings will either be placed in a JDF file, or in the newly developed metadata structure which is part of a PDF/VT file. This metadata can be used for run-time filtering of records, real-time imposition, audit trails, duplex management, finishing management, and the imprinting of text and barcodes to be used by inline optical character recognition (OCR) scanners and cameras for print integrity verification. In the future, the metadata could be used by a human operator to interactively navigate a large PDF job file in Adobe Acrobat.

The PDF/VT format specifications have been completed and approved by ISO. It is awaiting final publication, which is expected in mid-2010. Already several vendors have announced that they will support the format and it is likely to transform the use of variable data in the graphic arts industry.

Coming back to the need for cross-media, PDF can play an important role as well. Producing a cross-media campaign that utilises print and electronic channels often requires complex and disconnected workflows.

Looking at what document composition vendors showed at Ipex, the future of workflow will be centered on the composition platform. This is the focal point that takes in data and artwork and renders it at a later stage for print, mobile, web or other electronic or archiving channels. PDF is an excellent format for most channels, and since it has become an open format, more innovation can be expected.

Although not necessarily related to cross-media, at Ipex, an example came from industrial inkjet provider Atlantic Zeiser. The company said it will modify the PDF/VT standard to make it more suitable for high-speed packaging printing applications. Putting its money where its mouth is Atlantic Zeiser recently invested in Sofha, a Germany-based controller developer and Adobe partner.

Those are just a few workflow-related highlights of a very interesting and successful show. Ipex has shown it has its relevance in the international printing industry and that there is some silver lining in the year ahead of us.

Ralf Schlözer is associate director at digital print and document technology analyst Infotrends. Email ralf_schlozer@capv.com