The Future of PDF and Flash (about 5 meg)

New July 2007
Will Pollard story for OhmyNews

Previously
In 2004, Matthew Hardy attended an AUF meeting and spoke to slides
from David Brailsford's Seybold Amsterdam keynote.

The Acrobat User Forum will be almost inactive for the near future. Adobe have launched Acrobat Users as a website and started London meetings.

There may be informal meetings around the Futures Conference by the London College of Communication .
Also during BETT in January. Note for BETT 2008

The Acrobat User Forum started about ten years ago with issues mostly around
pre-press and graphic design. Most of the problems are resolved, at least in theory, so there is less need for discussion. PDF software is now developing on the server side with 'intelligent documents' intended for the enterprise or any form of organisation.

Meanwhile this page will continue to offer downloads from previous meetings in February and May. Also there will be information on meetings organised by other organisations.
In future there may be joint meetings involving an Acrobat group and others with a wider scope or there might be a PDF User Forum without Adobe support or something else might happen. Any views are welcome. auf2004@gmail.com

Meetings from Other Sources

London College of Communication
Futures Conference 2007,
During Digital Print World 16,17,18 Oct

The Official Flier from 2006 (about 1 meg)

comment by Will Pollard

From 2005

Report on DTP and Open Source by Gregor Fellenz, student at LCC

dtp_open_source.pdf

Members of the AUF were invited to attend. The conference is intended for students but is now also open to members of the Institute of Paper, Printing and Publishing (IP3). Digital Print World provided the venue at Earl's Court. There will be another one in 2006.

Links to some of the presentations may be available later. Meanwhile the promotion PDFs indicate the content.

Confirmed Speakers (34k from Word)
Official flier (1.2meg from Illustrator)
Version of flier (330k from InDesign)

For Acrobat users the most interesting news was from Jutta Koch of Adobe OEM Engineering in Norwich. She explained how JDF files created in Acrobat could help a creative person working in InDesign to produce both a PDF and JDF that would be suitable for later processes. The assumed workflow seems to have changed so that Indesign is not for creating a 'job intent' but is an early stage in production. The initial information sent to InDesign includes a job option file, a preflight file and colour controls. There may be more information, possibly through OEM partners, before IPEX where Adobe have booked a stand.

By the way, there was no Adobe stand at Digital Print World.
However Quark were not at all shy about the Job Jackets feature in Quark 7.

There is a report at OhmyNews. More links later.

Voluntary Sector Open Source Event
9th November 2005 Central London

This event included PDF but concentrated on XML and 'open documents'. A speaker from Mute claimed that PDF is good for publishing but the open document format could be better for archiving. Some reported that Adobe support the open document format and a bit of XML code can resolve any appparent differences. This is a subject for future discussion. Meanwhile site from last year, download updates expected soon.

ePublishing Solutions / Online Information
, Olympia

Adobe did not have a stand but PDF kept cropping up. In 2004 the Independent and Mimotek showed what is possible with XML and SVG.

IQA Digital Special Interest Group Launch Event
5 December 05, IQA Headquarters, 12 Grosvenor Crescent, London SW1

IQA Digital SIG published free draft guidelines for the production and hand over of digital images and artwork. The current version is available for download.

Ontologies and XML, from XML UK
8 December 05 , Unipart Conference Centre, Oxford

"You've invested heavily in XML as a means of standardising the way you represent information that has a vital role to play in your business. You use XML to exchange that information with your business partners. But do they understand it the way you do?"

Comment9.pdf

PDF of previous version of this page, enabled for comments if you have Reader 7

Although I will be supporting the new group on pre-press I still think it is incoherent to split up pre-press, knowledge work and server software. More on my blog about IPEX 2002, (yes it starts with hard copy...)

Time travel from pre-press to web services

Meeting 26th May 2005 Slug and Lettuce Islington 5pm - 7pm

After Adobe Live this informal meeting tried to connect the pre-press PDF history with the 'intelligent document' future.

Summary

• CIP4 have established JDF as a viable example of XML
• There will be more UK examples over the next 12 months
• Defra now have forms using Reader Extensions
• The future discussion on 'intelligent documents' has a base in pre-press

There was an update on previous presentations.

• Feb 2005 Notes from previous meeting (see below)- Will Pollard
• 2004 Job Tickets online - David Parker from Pelagon with Jaws PDF Courier from Global Graphics (this was a live demo, there is no PDF record)

• 2003 Defra case study for online forms - David Stevenson from Adobe UK

defra case studypress release (Sept 2003)

There is more interst in JDF so Pelagon are getting a better idea of what is required. There is no confirmation that David Parker will be at the meeting. However, he recently stated-

"Pelagon uses XML so there is no problem in relating to JDF specifications. However there needs to be real demand from a number of print sites to identify the parts of the JDF spec that would make sense for detailed implementation. This is likely to happen within the next year, for example with KPG."

There was discussion about the JDF features in Acrobat 7. These are not well known and were hardly mentioned during Adobe Live. This could be a topic for a future meeting.

Defra have now started using the Reader Extensions . See for example the page on the Higher Level Stewardship Farm Environment Plan. You can download the form and try it out in Reader 7. It should allow you to save changes, add pages, comment etc.

So this has been much talked about by people interested in forms.
Now it is working in the UK.

Please use this form if you would like to be told about future events
form3

With Adobe Reader 7 you should be able to comment on the agenda and mail back the form.

Notes from previous meeting in February.

This was the first AUF meeting looking at Acrobat 7. The first impression was that JDF had been largely overlooked in press reviews. This is the first time that widely available desktop software has been available to create a JDF file. It could be as disruptive for print workflows as PDF so far.

Then CIP4 announced that PrintTalk is to be further integrated with JDF. So print companies can offer a range of forms and data integration in XML. So far discussion of the 'enterprise' aspects of PDF seem to have been aimed at large companies in financial services or other admin intensive sectors. It may be time that the print industry can show examples of PDF forms and data applications.

CIP4 have also announced an awards scheme that will result in a series of case studies. We don't yet know of suitable UK candidates but this can be discussed.

CIP4 / PrintTalk Why PrintTalk?

CIP4 Print Innovation Awards

Will Pollard looked at some background quality ideas. The CIP4 announcement on "Interoperability Conformance Specifications" is actually quite exciting. The printing industry could be an example of how PDF forms and documents can show off the benefits of web services.

Notes for meeting - Will Pollard -please add notes in Reader - (as html)

Server side budgets

What sort of budget is required for Adobe server software? What alternatives exist for PDF or for other software with similar functions?
So far most of the sites using 'Intelligent Document' have been large financial enterprises or government. At Seybold last year there was discussion of alternatives including XML forms and open source. See also the 'On the fly' presentation from Thomas Merz.

With Acrobat 7 it is possible to create a form that sends an email with the data as an XML attachment. This is much simpler than using server software. Another reason there may be print companies where the approach could be implemented.

SVG - when is it an alternative?

There have been at least three versions of David Brailsford's presentation on data and design. One reason it keeps getting longer is that there is more to say on SVG. It may seem strange for a group starting with Acrobat to concentrate on this, but it may be time to assume that XML is well known and look at where SVG could fit with this. Adobe Reader is thought to include SVG anyway, for some reason.

Collaboration and learning with Abobe Reader

With version 7 it is possible to use the notes tool and other forms of collaboration if enabled with Acrobat Professional. This can be used for proofing and review cycles. It could also be used in education but few examples are yet known about.
Download a test PDF that should work for commenting with Reader 7.
This is being used to work out the content of future meetings.
If you don't have Reader 7, text email might work just as well. It may end up as PDF anyway.

If you can't be at the meeting, please send in any comments or links you thjink would be relevant. At this point there is not much solid knowledge on using Acrobat 7 but the meeting will be an occasion to share what is known so far.

Email auf2004@gmail.com Phone 01392 660639

press release

Link to JDF presentation by Martin Bailey from Global Graphics at Seybold Amsterdam 2003

This meeting included speakers from the Electronic Publishing Specialist Group of the British Compuer Society.

Thanks to the IQA, IP3
and XML UK for help in promoting the meeting

Creating Reliable JDF with Acrobat 7 (PDF: 1.7M)

Datalogics - Job Ready

Objective Advantage - JDF