PDF Aktuell 108: the new PitStop 2017 and Acrobat DC update confusion

Latest information on PDF for Print Production by Stephan Jaeggi

Issue 108  /  May 5th, 2017

Most important issue in PDF workflows

Dear PDF users

The biggest problem in PDF workflows for print production is certainly the topic of color. Often there are surprises after printing because the printed colors do not meet the expectations.

PDF/X files have a mandatory output intent but often the color spaces of the objects in PDF/X documents do not match the output intent.

This can be checked very easy with the Color Preflight of the PDFX-ready Online Tools.

Since this happens frequently and the reason is often lack of know how I have decide to create a seminar entitled PDF Color Management (for now only in german). This will be offered at the usual places in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The first seminar will take place in Olten on 31.8.17.

How many of your PDF files are checked with a Preflight tool?

For my presentation at PDF Days Europe 2017 on 15.5.2017 I have started a new survey:

How many of your PDF files are checked by a Prelight tool?

Based on my long experience as a graphic arts consultant I expect that the share of PDF files which are checked with a Preflight tool in daily production is quite low. But I am willing to learn. Please participate in this very short survey…

Acrobat DC April 2017 Update with confusing version jump

Adobe has released a new update for Acrobat DC. As usual there are two different updaters:

• Acrobat 17.009.20044 for subscribers of the Document Cloud (Continuous track)
• Acrobat 15.006.30306 for users with a perpetual license (Classic track)

The update can also be installed using the Acrobat menu Help > Check for Updates….

It’s strange that the subscription variant now has a 17.x version number while the perpetual variant still has a 15.x version number. For sure this will increase the confusion about the different variants of Acrobat even more!

…Read more…

Enfocus PitStop 2017 with new technology

Enfocus has released version 2017 of PitStop Pro and PitStop Server. It’s the first bigger update sind April 2015 (version 13).

Enfocus has used the time to develop some innovative new preflight features. I have waited for these since longtime.

These features are based on the new PDF Geomapper technology. This makes ist possible to check objects based on their position on the page in relation to other objects at this position. This was not possible with any preflight tool since only properties of single objects are checked.

…Read more…

Enfocus PDF Review Module released

At last years Drupa Enfocus had showcased a new technology which allows to better integrate customers into review and approval workflows. This technology is now released as Switch PDF Review Module.

PDF Review Module consists of two parts:

• a Switch App which uploads a PDF to a web server, and
• the PDF Review web server, which can be installed on any internal or external host.

…Read more…

Callas pdfToolbox 9.2 with cross-library search

In pdfToolbox 9 Callas has introduced the possibility to define unlimited libraries with collections of profiles, checks, fixups and multiple settings. This allows very easily to combine all definitions for a particular project or customer and save them in an independent way. Changes in one library do not change anything in other libraries. So far so good. It becomes problematic if one uses this feature extensively (like me) and one has to search for a specific definition but cannot remember in which library this was saved.

This problem is now solved with the latest update to Callas pdfToolbox 9.2 with allows to search in all libriaries at once.

In addition to some smaller feature enhancements the new version allows to use an external text editor for definition JavaScripts in variables.

Ghent Workgroup PDF Survey 2017

Every few years the Ghent Workgroup (GWG) is conduction a survey on the use of PDF. The responses will help to better understand how processes have changed over the years, which specifications are being adopted, and how workflows vary so the GWG can continue to improve their solutions. Completing the survey only takes a few minutes. In order to get better results it would be great if a lot of users could participate in this survey.

ESKO workflows compliant with Ghent PDF Output Suite 5

ESKO confirmes  confirm compatibility of the Esko Software Platform with new Ghent PDF Output Suite version 5.0.All 48 test patches in the Ghent PDF Output Suite 5.0 were processed perfectly using Esko Software Platform applications and workflow

More articles available in german blog

In the german blog there are additional articles available for which no external web pages in english exists or containing information which is only relevant for german speaking users.