Role of Enfocus CertifiedPDF.net in the printing industry
The Enfocus CertifiedPDF.net website manages and synchronises PDF quality specifications between design and production processes. The primary objective is to ensure that document creators and receivers work with current PDF specifications for PDF creation, preflighting and subsequent production. The CertifiedPDF.net site stores all preflighting and production specifications necessary for checking and delivering production ready PDFs.
Currently, Certified PDF.net provides standard specifications such as PDF/X and file specifications from various industry associations, such as those working within the Ghent PDF Workgroup. Several publishers and printers publish their own specifications (or refer to public specifications, and is therefore not a medium by which the files themselves are being transmitted from creator to receiver. Enfocus CertifiedPDF.net follows a similar principal to that of Quickcut.
This company specialises in ad delivery for newspaper and magazine publishing, hosting a database of file specifications maintained by the participating publishers. The server provides a quality control reference check before allowing ad file delivery. Quickcut’s server is set up for ad files, while Enfocus’ Certified PDF.net and Markzware Flightcheck Online are designed for any kind of workflow. In both cases publishers are responsible for keeping the specifications up to date, so the host company is not responsible for file delivery or compliance.
PDF creators choose the specifications they use. A notification mechanism checks that the specifications are still up to date and notifies the user if there are changes. This type of web based preflighting provides a quality control hub for production, synchronising production specifications so that preflighting is done correctly when the file reaches the receiver's desktop and where the tools are available to correct any errors.
The goal with web-based preflighting and quality control systems is to avoid unnecessary files transmission, and to minimise delays in production. Preflighting used to be about correcting PostScript errors, but it has evolved in step with the prepress business. Today, workflow automation demands automated quality control systems increasingly based on PDF.
