At its quarterly meeting in July, the Ghent PDF Workgroup (GWG) reviewed proceedings in application-specific At its quarterly meeting in July, the Ghent PDF Workgroup (GWG) reviewed proceedings in application-specific sub-standards of the core PDF/X specifications. Members were happy to announce that the latest versions of Enfocus PitStop, Agfa Apogee and DevZero Printsure are compliant with the current GWG specification. Subcommittees reported on progress in job ticket, process control and packaging specifications that are to be released within the next few months, and finalised preparations of a white paper on workflow requirements.

The Ghent PDF Workgroup was formed in June 2002 in Ghent, Belgium, by industry associations from Belgium, Holland, France and Switzerland, mainly representing the newspaper and magazine publishing industry, in order to develop a certified PDF standard for ads. It soon extended its scope “to establish and disseminate process specifications for best practices in graphic arts workflows” and has been joined, so far, by 20 industry associations and 18 vendors from across the world. Members include the Flexography Technical Association and IPA from the USA, European and international organisations, Adobe, Agfa, Artwork Systems, Callas Software, Enfocus, Esko Graphics, Global Graphics, Heidelberg, Kodak, OneVision, Quark and Screen. Among others, IFRA, UGRA and Time magazine are observers. Group members have agreed to collaborate on specifications for PDF creation and preflighting, with the intention of adopting one set of specifications. Each member has assigned one or two technical experts with hands-on experience for GWG's development activities.

At present, GWG is at its third version of the overall specification for the use of PDF/X1a and PDF/X3. Standards are available for newspaper ads, magazine ads, commercial sheet offset, commercial web offset, and gravure. Standard specifications for the packaging industry are due to be released this September or October, and will include a framework of settings, rules and guidelines to optimize workflows in each of the printing processed used in that industry. All specifications can be downloaded for free from GWG's website at gwg.org.

As an international forum of workflow professionals, the group works in subcommittees that address specific issues and industry sectors, and that often work together with other specification platforms, such as CIP4, AdsML, and the PAB (Printing Across Boarders) project.

Most recently, the Job Ticket Subcommittee released the first in a series of Job Tickets. The GWG Ad Ticket is an Adobe Acrobat custom XMP panel that attaches to a PDF file, and is designed to provide comprehensive meta data about the ad represented by the file. Using the GWG Ad Ticket, detailed and useful information such as buyer's name, agency, repro house with contact information, advertiser's name, first publication date, as well as technical production information (colour description, width, bleed, remarks), accompany the ad file from creation to production. It includes 13 required and 9 optional fields that are compatible with AdsML, the initiative supported by IFRA. 

Stéphane Georges of Dalim Software and Chairperson for the GWG Job Ticket Subcommittee commented, “There is a strong need for stakeholders to get more information about the files they exchange, especially in the advertising segment. By promoting the standard that is already compatible with AdsML, we expect a quick adoption of our best practice specifications.”

The Colour Management Subcommittee investigates colour management issues and best practices for PDF/ X-1a and PDF/X-3 workflows and defines how to implement these in the GWG specifications for PDF file creation and preflighting. The subcommittee furthermore aims to stimulate a more international approach of defining and using ‘standard' ICC profiles for printing.

The goal of the Process Control Subcommittee is to increase the level of predictability in PDF workflows by delivering best practice guidelines for the testing and evaluation of PDF reading and processing systems. Its Ghent Output Suite, consisting of a series of test patches for print workflows, was showcased at Ipex earlier this year.
A Specifications Subcommittee works on maintaining the current specifications. This includes testing the current specifications and updating them for new applications such as new versions of Adobe Acrobat, InDesign, and QuarkXPress. The Office Document Printing Subcommittee

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