Pocket Guide

The GhentWorkgroup Shares Its Vision for Package Production

Good PDF workflowscome in GWG-tested packages !

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Vendor members linkAdobe Systems Incorporated .............................................................. www.adobe.comAdstream ................................................................................................................ www.adstream.comAgfa ............................................................................................................................ www.agfa.comCallas .......................................................................................................................... www.www.callassoftware.comCGS ............................................................................................................................... www.cgsusa.comDalim Software ................................................................................................. www.dalim.comEnfocus .................................................................................................................... www.enfocus.comEskoArtwork ........................................................................................................ www.artwork-systems.comGlobal Graphics ................................................................................................ www.globalgraphics.comGMG Color ............................................................................................................ www.gmgcolor.comHeidelberg ............................................................................................................. www.heidelberg.comHP ................................................................................................................................. www.hp.comICS ................................................................................................................................ www.icscolor.comKodak ........................................................................................................................ www.kodak.comOneVision .............................................................................................................. www.onevision.comQuark ......................................................................................................................... www.quark.comScreen Europe ................................................................................................... www.screeneurope.comSpecle ....................................................................................................................... www.specle.net

GhentWorkgroup Members (may 2008)

Vendor, association, industry & educational

Industry membersAssociated Newspapers - UK ..................................................................... www.associatednewspapers.comBleuprocess - France .......................................................................................... www.bleuprocess.comFour Pees - Belgium ............................................................................................. www.fourpees.comHearst Publications - USA ............................................................................. www. hearst.comMedit Consult - Denmark .............................................................................. www. meditconsult.dkSanoma Magazines - Belgium .................................................................. www.sanoma-magazines.beScreen Angel - France ....................................................................................... www.screen-angel.comSquare - France ........................................................................................................ www.square.frQuebecor World - USA ..................................................................................... www. quebecorworldinc.com

Association members country linkAIDO - Spain .............................................................................................................. www.aido.esBPIF - UK ....................................................................................................................... www.britishprint.comBVDM - Germany .................................................................................................. www.bvdm.orgCMBO - The Netherlands ............................................................................... www.cebuco.nlDDPFF - Denmark ................................................................................................ www.ddpff.dkDigital Ad Lab - UK ................................................................................................ www.digitaladlab.co.ukERA - Europe ............................................................................................................. www.era.eu.orgFebelgra - Belgium .............................................................................................. www.febelgra.beFESPA - UK ................................................................................................................... www.fespa.comFTA - USA ...................................................................................................................... www.flexography.orgIDEAlliance - USA .................................................................................................. www.idealliance.orgIDP Group - The Netherlands ..................................................................... www.idp-group.nlIPA - USA ....................................................................................................................... www.ipa.orgMadrid Graphic Arts Cluster - Spain .................................................... www.citagm.comMedibel+ - Belgium ............................................................................................ www.medibelplus.beNederlands Uitgeversverbond - The Netherlands ................. www.nuv.nlPDF/X-ready - Switzerland ........................................................................... www.pdfx-ready.chPPA - UK ......................................................................................................................... www.ppa.co.ukRotasjon.no - Norway ........................................................................................ www.rotasjon.noSICOGIF - France .................................................................................................... www.sicogif.comTaga Italia - Italy ..................................................................................................... www.taga.itVFG - Austria ............................................................................................................. www.vfg.xaron.comVIGC - Belgium ........................................................................................................ www.vigc.beVSD - Switzerland ................................................................................................. www.druckindustrie.ch

for best practices in graphic arts workflows.” To date, the GWG has released PDF profiles to address a wide range of print production processes. These include preflight specifi-cations and best practices formagazine and newspaper production, print advertising, commercial printing, silkscreen, wide-format printing, office document printing, and packaging. These specifications have been tested, and vendors who want to create their own implementations to support their solutions can easily do so. Then they have the option of having their implementations of these specifications certified by the GWG.

Tools for a range of workflowsDuring the process of developing these specifications, the GWG found that many of the prepress systems and tools in the marketplace either were not compliant or were not up to date with the GWG specifications or the current versions of layout and design software. As a result, the GWG Output Suite was developed.

The Output Suite is a set of individual files that can be used to test the design and print production workflow processes from layout packages through proofing and platemak-ing. These tests have been used successfully by many vendors to test software and utili-ties and to identify the correct settings to be used. More importantly, they have been used by “end users” to quickly identify problems in their workflow processes before they find out that one job won’t process correctly.

One of the more recent areas of work has been the development of electronic job ticketing specifications. The first job ticket released by the GWG was for ad submission. Working in conjunction with CIP4 and AdsML, an XMP ad ticket was released and is currently being used with great success by many large agencies and publishers in Europe.

It’s all about making the people and processes smarterWhile most of the work product offered by the GWG is available in the form of easily installable settings files, it was felt that there was a need for additional educational materials for those who wanted to dig deeper into what really goes on behind their processes. The message and the education are spreading in the form of white papers and live events offered at member venues.

It is often said that “the best things in life are free.” We at the GWG strongly believe in this statement, and it is an integral part of our DNA. Please review the exciting and educating information in this publication, and visit the GWG website so that you too can benefit from all of this work, and as many others have already done.

Few years ago, a group of Graphic Arts User Associations from various Benelux countries decided that it would be in their combined interest to develop a single, consensus-driven set of PDF preflight profiles, instead of each having individual country or associ-ation centric versions. They recognized that the realities of Globalization were affecting all of their members and needed to be addressed in the production processes. This was the beginning of the Ghent PDF Workgroup (GWG).

Since then the group has grown from a handful of regional user associations to include over 50 member groups, including many international user associations and premier vendors of graphic arts solutions and tools – and it is still growing. Recently, the non-profit GWG opened its membership up to individual industry members in order to allow some of the larger “end user” companies and industry con sultants to participate in this valuable enterprise. Additionally, the group opened up its membership to cer-tain educational institutions.

The feeling is that if there is a broad base of users participating, there is a greater opportunity to address a broader range of issues. The main reason for the success of the GWG is that the development of each of the specifications and best practices all continue to be consensus-driven and address the key problems being felt in the field. This is possible because the working members in each of the focused subcommittees include many of the top industry experts from around the globe.

Working with standardsWorking closely with the international standards community, the GWG develops practical solutions to build on – and enhance – the work done by these standards groups. In fact, many of the working participants of the GWG are also active members of those international standards groups. Once these solutions are developed, tested, and agreed upon, the membership of users and vendors work together to bring these solutions to the entire global user community.

While the GWG initially created PDF preflight profiles, the work of the group has grown to include many other areas of interest. These areas of interest and development all stem from the mission statement: “To establish and disseminate process specifications

GhentWorkgroup Has a Mission:Real Users and Real Experts Building Real Tools

By David L. Zwang, Chairman, GhentWorkgroup

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Steven Carter, Director of Technology for Southern Graphic Systems (SGS) in St. Louis and co-chair of theGWG Packaging Subcommittee, says, “A big thing to remember is that currently the specification doesn’t adhere strictly to PDF/X. However, the ISO recognizes this and is working on PDF/X 4 and PDF/X 5, which will allow transparency and support spe-cial inks, respectively. These should be released sometime this summer.”

GWG packaging specifications Carter also explains the reasoning behind the five specification categories. “Package Design LR and HR are useful. Some designers don’t like to embed high resolution images in their PDFs because that increases the file size. There are a lot of emails with the file attached going around for comments and approvals. It’s always better to send a small file to the CEO who just uses Acrobat Reader. Some designers will embed the high-resolution files when they submit the file to the prepress house. Others still prefer to send those files separately,” he says.

Carter says that GWG specifications for digital printing on label presses like those from HP Indigo or Xeikon have not yet been addressed although some initial testing is going on. At this point, the offset specifications would be the closest to consider. He explains that in the packaging industry, some design firms have in-house art production teams who prepare the print ready files. Others send their files to prepress houses like SGS. Still others work directly with their printers. “Most of the larger design firms that specia-lize in packaging are aware of the different requirements for the printing processes. It’s typically the smaller design firms that domostly commercial work that are surprised by things like the traps for flexo and that they have to account for distortion. This knowledge is not prevalent among the wider design community.”

Therefore, although designers themselves may not be preparing the process-specific file, the specification requirements should be helpful for information on how a design might work (or not) given the printing process to be used.

Talk to vendors about compatibility If a design firm is taking the lead in using PDF-Plus, chec-king with their vendors on compatibility of PDF levels and the ability of their RIPs and workflow to handle transparency is important. For example, when creating a PDF directly from Adobe Illustrator CS2, the program default settings will allow the user to open the file again, in Illustrator, for further editing. A handy screen with instructions pops up in Illustrator when

Avoid costly mistakes. Cut time in the production cycle. Exchange files without rancor and finger pointing. All these and more are benefits that flow from PDF/X-Plus. Package designers who are interested in these benefits of adhering to the GWG Packaging Specification, presently known as PDF-Plus, will have some work and research ahead, but nothing too difficult. Designers will also have to become conversant with the PDF/X standard, and tech savvy enough to understand and preflight a file or buy preflight services. Basically the specifications are instructions on how a file should be set up, and what is allowed and not allowed in the file. Another way to put it is that it’s a set of creation and preflight parameters. The first step, of course, is to download the free new specifications at www.gwg.org.

Getting to know PDF/X PDF is one of the most familiar and widely used file formats. It can be created through the ‘export’ function in Adobe’s Creative Suite programs, Microsoft Office programs (ideally not for documents that will print professionally) with Adobe Acrobat installed, and also by vendors other than Adobewho have licensed the technology, including Quark. That’s one reason why PDF is designated PDF 1.3, 1.4, and so on. Currently, Adobe’s CS 3 creates PDF 1.7, CS2 generates PDF 1.6, and CS makes PDF 1.5.

PDF/X is not a PDF level or an alternative to the file format. Rather, it’s a focused subset of PDF that clearly defines what can or cannot be included in the file. The International Organization for Standardization in Geneva, Switzerland, has ratified several versions of PDF/X as standards for different purposes. The GWG specifications are based on these standards. Today, PDF/X is used principally for reliable prepress file exchange for com-mercial printing as well as for submitting magazine and newspaper advertising to as a PDF/X in Acrobat, and then preflight it with the Acrobat preflight function.

The GWG Packaging Specifications, presently known as PDF-Plus, are based on PDF/X-1a:2001 but have a limited number of exceptions allowed, the most important of which are transparency, layers, and colors beyond CMYK.

GhentWorkgroup Packaging Specifications:Some ‘How-Tos’ to Put into Practice

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GWG CATEGORIES

UpstreamSpecifications:PackagingDesign LR (lowres)•PackagingDesign HR (hi res)•

DownstreamSpecifications:PackagingOffset•Packaging Gravure•Packaging Flexo•

the Save As a PDF option is selected. Changing any of these basic settings with the exception of the PDF level will disable Illustrator editing functions if it is reopened. The default PDF level is 1.4 but CS2 allows saving the PDF at 1.5 and 1.6. The level chosen depends on the PDF level vendors are using. Carter says the intent of the GWG is to always support the highest PDF level possible without “causing a bunch of problems.” He says, “In the past, there were huge diff erences between PDF levels. The diff erences bet-ween 1.5 and 1.6 and between 1.6 and 1.7 are not nearly as dramatic.”

Flattening the live transparency will also destroy editability in the original fi le. Chris Michiels, Technical Specialist Packaging, De Schutter ’Neroc n.v., who also served as head of the group working on the GWG Packaging Specifi cation for Off set, says that his company currently works with PDF 1.5 and completely with live transparency. This is because their Artwork Systems workfl ow applications now accept live transparency.

Carter says that SGS has packaging workfl ow systems from primary vendors Esko Graphics, Artwork Systems, Kodak, and Dalim because some of their customers ask for a specifi c workfl ow. Most of these systems, he says, can now accept native PDF with live transparency. “Designers have to check with their vendors to see if they can do it,” Carter says. “It’s the biggest barrier to adoption.”

The power of prefl ightIn the end, prefl ight is what it’s all about – checking to make sure that all those built in parameters have beenmet. For in-house fi le prefl ight, designers can use programs from a variety of solution providers that have been found GWG compliant (see the GWG website, www.gwg.org, for compliant applications). Solutions provided by GWG vendor

Specifi cation Testimonial: Step by Step PDF-Plus Adoption at Gravity/PhototypeTerri McConnell, Director of Brand and Business Strategy at Cincinnati-headquartered Gravity and Phototype, says that Gravity fi rst started using the GWG Packaging baseline specifi cation (issued in 2005) for fi le exchange between its design and production art departments. Gravity (www.gravityisgood.com) is the creative arm of this company specializing in packagedesign and production art. Phototype handles the premedia work.

“We fi rst beta-tested our own internal workfl ow and determined the benefi ts and problems,” McConnell says. “We worked through the concrete problems before production took PDF � les fromoutside design � rms.” She points out that PDF has certain practical limitations such as the logistics of making sure everyone is using the right versions of Illustrator or Acrobat and the right equipment that can accept transparency.

“In the long run, starting with Illustrator and then keeping the � le in PDF throughout the entire work� ow is the end game,” McConnell says. “In the shorter term, we � nd the PDFPlus Upstream speci� cation optimal to transfer the � le between design and production art. Internally,we also use the Downstream speci� cations, and we also use them selectively client by client.”

Steps infl uencing fi nal results GhentWorkgroup

1. Draw picture Advice and Best Practices:object creation•object editing•colormanagement•fi le formats•

2. Page Layout Advice and Best Practices:illustration, text,and image placement•object editing•colormanagement•fl attening•fi le formats•

3. Postscript fi le Settings:PostScript creation settings•Print styles presets•

4. PDF File Settings:PDF creation settings•

5. Prefl ight and correction

Settings:PDF prefl ight settings•PDF corrections•

PDF/X-Plus File

members who worked collaboratively on the GWG Packaging Specifi cations, Artwork Systems, Enfocus, Esko, Kodak or even Adobe’s own prefl ight function in Acrobat, can be used to set up PDF-Plus for Packaging requirements and then check these fi les. For those who use outside prefl ight services, there are a host of online prefl ight product off erings that can handle PDF-Plus.

To get started with PDF-Plus, designers need to: Download the specifi cation setup fi les (available free at gwg.org)• Set up prefl ight parameters in their prefl ight program or have this done for them. • Check with their vendors about application versions, ability to RIP transparency, • and PDF levels currently in use.Prefl ight their fi les or buy out the service.• If you want further background information you can also download the written • specifi cations.

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Early adopters Christian Blaise, owner of bleuprocess, a consultancy dedicated to brand owners that specializes in the graphic arts for packaging (www.bleuprocess.com), was Graphic Chain Manager at Nestlé France during the initial testing in 2003 to develop the GWG Pac-kaging Specification. He also serves as co-chair of the GWG Pac-kaging Subcommittee.

“We used the fact that a brand owner was in the loop to work on the upstream part of the workflow as the agencies were difficult to address directly,” Blaise recalls. “The pro-ject was difficult to start, as the agencies were not convinced about the benefits and were expecting the process to be more complex for them and to be a constraint on their creativity.

“After two months of tests, McCann-Erickson SiteCom took the lead on the project and were so convinced that they wanted to extend the process to other activities. They understood that the benefits were not only for Nestlé but for them as well. Thanks to the profile, they were finally able to gather information on things they used to do incorrectly, which the repro house always complained about but never explained. Validating their files before sending them to the next stage was also good because they knew they wouldn’t be getting calls asking for corrections or more information,” he says. Blaise estimates that prior to testing what was then a “baseline” specification, the repro house returned more than 20% of all the files from the agency for corrections. With the new PDF workflow, the number dropped to less than 5% with this agency.

Blaise also observes that clean, workable files that help lead to PDF-Plus as a specification were not the only beneficial outcome. He points out, “The fact that the agency became a real qualified partner in the chain (instead of just being the ‘artist’), improved the relationship between the designers and the repro house. They started to exchange information and started to work in the same direction instead of just criticizing one another.”

Square, the other French company involved in testing, was founded in 1979. Headquartered in Lyon, it is a graphic production company specializing in publishing, packaging, brand design, digital asset management, and cross media (www.square.com). The company works with customers all over Europe (France, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Spain), and the U.S. CEO Roland Donzelle says, “We produce all kinds of packaging, mostly for the food industry, but the heart of our trade is Graphic Production, whatever the branch of the industry.”

“Indeed, we at Square were involved from the very beginning in the initial testing for PDF file exchange in packaging applications. Our field of expertise and testing applied mostly to the offset process. Within the GWG Committee, we worked on the definition of ‘best

Both U.S. and European production companies worked with designers, brand owners, and printers to test the Ghent Workgroup’s PDF Specification for Packaging, presently known as PDF-Plus. In close to a four-year process, these companies – household names in their respective countries – assessed the viability, challenges and benefits of a PDF workflow for packaging. Nestlé and Square, in France; De Schutter’Neroc, headquartered in Belgium, with offices in The Netherlands and Germany; and Southern Graphics and Kraft Foods in the U.S., used real production files in real-world environments in a collabo-rative effort to develop these “best practices” specifications for packaging.

Brand owners and production facilities, or “repro houses,” were the logical places to test possible parameters for print ready files. A brand owner can influence its design agencies. Preparing the actual print ready files is a prepress house’s core competency. Interestingly, the three production companies reporting here also offer long lists of ancil-lary services to their customers.

From the trenches:Powerhouse Users Put PDF-Plus Specifications to the Test

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Steve Carter, Co-Chair of the GWG packaging subcommmittee, created this PDF file to test almost all of the problems that may be encountered when printing from a PDF. This file helps printers troubleshoot printing issues such as transparencies, indexed colors, blend modes, and more.

practices’ to include settings, rules, guidelines, workflows, and a framework to define PDF as the ultimate exchangeable file format for the packaging industry, based on industry standards and market requirements,” Donzelle explains. “These guidelines and settings are ‘generic’ and suitable for the entire process from design through output. And they cover all printing processes such as flexo, offset, and gravure.”

Donzelle also notes that Square has been made up of convinced Acrobat users for a long time. Since the release of Acrobat 3 (1996), Square has been using PDF as the file format they send to their printers. Since there were no packaging standards, Square developed its own control profiles and moved toward the GWG “as soon as we heard about their projects relating to packaging.” Now, he says that they are also “convinced early users” of Adobe’s Creative Suite, particularly InDesign for page and packaging lay-outs.

“The main advantage of using PDF files within the GWG Packaging Specifications is that we can rely on a safe standard. As for our clients, they can count on improved exchange of graphic files. In addition, they benefit from a very high level of security through traceability, as well as improved time to market,” Donzelle says. “The main goal in pac-kaging production is to reduce both time-to-market and cost by finding the way to get the job done correctly the first time.”

Getting it right the first time means that the first time becomes the only time the job is processed, resulting in the enormous efficiencies that Square, and others, can attest to. In fact, during the short period from January to June last year, Square calcu-lates that 350 production files were preflighted using the GWG PDF-Plus Packaging Off-set v2 specification. They sent these files to 60 different printers who all printed these files without a single problem.

Donzelle also says, “The production side of the packaging industry was lacking in workflow standards, in contrast to its business (administrative and operational) side in which economic and regulatory issue are very important and have been addressed. Any solution that leads to faster file exchanges while making them more reliable is a significant breakthrough.”

He cites the main challenge to the wider adoption of PDF Packaging Specificati-ons for file exchange as “the global lack of information among professional users inclu-ding printers, designers, and decision makers.”

Chris Michiels, Technical Specialist Packaging, De Schutter’Neroc n.v., who also served as head of the group working on the GWG Packaging Specification for Offset, agrees that lack of information is a challenge. A true evangelist for PDF workflow, Michiels says, “Lack of information is a big problem. People know what PDF is but they don’t know what it can do for them. The workflow is there, the software and hardware are there, it’s that people are not informed. But this is a train that cannot be stopped.”

Technical BenefitsDe Schutter’Neroc (www.deschutterneroc.com) employs some 300 people at its vari-ous offices and serves clients globally. According to Michiels, the company originated as a “tool maker” for packaging printers. One product was gravure cylinders. Several years ago the business changed to concentrate on production. It has grown into an international packaging and marketing services provider whose clients are principally brand owners. Services offered include packaging management, packaging and corpo-rate design, artwork and prepress for packaging and marketing communications, pho-tography, color management, and integrated workflow systems. Therefore, although Michiels worked on the offset specification for GWG, the company has the expertise and produces files for flexo and gravure as well as offset.

“As a repro (production) house, we send out files for clients all over the world,” Michiels says. “We work with printers globally, as well, including companies in Eastern Europe and China. PDF is not widely used for file delivery to many of these printers. In fact, some of the Chinese printers want files in Illustrator 5. I believe we’re now on Illustrator 13. But these are challenges only for the moment.”

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The French graphic production company Square has been committed to PDF printing for brands and pac-kaging for over ten years. Square was instrumental in developing best practices for packaging in the early days of the GhentPDFWorkgroup.

wide and last year had net revenues of over $34.3 billion.

Kraft worked with SGS on the specification for the PDF file exchange between designers and brand owners. Kraft’s Associate Director for Prepress & Print Technology, Gary Vogt, says that Kraft tends to use and receive highly complex files. Therefore, for the testing process, they used files from eight of the company’s design partners. SGS processed all the files for output. “The GWG is delivering on PDF’s promise of truly por-table, reliable, file exchange, even for the most complex application,” he says.

Carter points out that Kraft and other brand owners have no interest in being arbitrators for their vendors. They want their designers, prepress houses, and printers to agree on a standard file format and use it. He says that Kraft intends to eventually require that all their vendors use PDF-Plus from design to print, possibly before the end of this year. However, at this stage, the company is a little reluctant to dictate to printers when it might involve expensive upgrades, and believes the market needs more educa-tion.

Kraft is not the only U.S. consu-mer giant considering this workflow. Carter says that a Nestlé division in the U.S., Purina, and the Sara Lee Food Group are all in the early stages of tes-ting PDF-Plus.

“Until recently, the infrastructure has not been there to use in the packaging industry,” Carter says. “For example, at drupa 2004, Kodak, Esko Graphics, and other big equipment and workflow vendors announced that they were switching to an internal file format based on PDF for their packaging workflows, but it took until last year to ship these products. Much of the installed base still needs to upgrade.” One consequence is that many RIPs still in the field cannot process live transparency, although with the introduction of newer RIP technology this can be addressed with upgrades.

In addition to infrastructure, Carter also notes that the cost of design and prepress is sometimes insignificant to large brand owners in comparison to the cost of substra-tes for their packages. “If Anheuser-Busch, for example, can save $1 million by redesigning their Budweiser box, they will. A $2,000 extra charge because of a design mistake is not as much of a big deal when they could save a million dollars elsewhere. However to a catalog company, $2,000 could make or break their postage. That will change as the market moves to PDF and adopts the new standards. It will bleed over quickly”.

“The writing is on the wall, that’s where everything is going,” Carter says. “Packaging is a lot like commercial printing was regarding the Internet and collaboration ten years ago. Now it’s all Internet and PDF. Packaging is going through a Renaissance.”

According to Michiels, the greatest advantage of PDF as a file format is that you can put everything in it – even videos and music. He notes that capability is also the downside to the file. “That’s why you have to profile PDF to certain specifications. You have to make sure there are no extra things in it.”

Currently, De Schutter’Neroc uses PDF 1.5 (produced by Adobe CS) in its workflow. This is also the PDF level supported in PDF-Plus for Packaging. They keep transparency created in Illustrator files live as allowed by this specification. Michiels says that the pac-kaging workflow applications ArtPro and Nexus from Artwork Systems can now import “almost” all of the forms of transparency that are created in Adobe products. “We work in PDF from beginning to end,” he says. “In addition, if a design agency makes the PDF, they have to be able to open the same information from beginning to end.”

That’s one reason live transparency is significant in the packaging world. As an example, if a file has been flattened to make the PDF, then has to be returned and opened in Illustrator for corrections, Illustrator functions can’t be used. Michiels does note, however, that at this stage designers still need to include original files with their submissions even though the PDFs are created according to PDF-Plus for Packaging, which allows layers. That’s in case files that linked to Illustrator, or layered Photoshop files, for example, have to be edited.

Testing moves to the U.S. with Brand Owner Objectives Steven Carter, Director of Technology, St. Louis, for Southern Graphic Systems (SGS), and Christian Blaise agree with Square’s Donzelle. They cite a shorter cycle time and reduced cost as a brand owner’s primary objective in asking their vendors to adopt a PDF workflow based on PDF-Plus. Carter and Blaise co-chair the GWG Packaging Sub-committee.

SGS (www.sgsintl.com) is the world’s largest packaging-specific prepress service company and continues to grow organically and through acquisitions. This year alone, the company has acquired three package design/production firms. Like De Schutter’-Neroc in Europe, the company started as a gravure cylinder engraver, albeit in 1946 in the U.S.

SGS labels its client services as “Design-2-Print” solutions that enhance brand iden-tity and improve its clients’ “Speed-to-Market” demands. Today SGS offers on site pro-ject management and consulting, conceptual design and production art development, and digital asset management, all of which increase involvement with its consumer products partners.

Given that list, it’s not surprising that some of the world’s largest and most recog-nized consumer products companies partner with SGS. Nor is it surprising that SGS and its customers, like Kraft Foods, would be interested in a common file format with agreed-on specifications. Kraft Foods, with its 61 brands, has over 159 facilities world-

“Packaging is a lot like commercial printing was regarding the Internet and collaboration ten years ago. Now it’s all Internet and PDF. Packaging is going through a Renaissance.”

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www.gwg.org

The best things in life are free…

Meet the Ghent PDF Workgroup (GWG), made up of volunteer representatives of graphic arts associations and vendors from all over the world.

The GWG is successfully working together to guarantee easy, streamlined workflows that make international file exchange a seamless process for designers, prepress professionals, printers, brand owners, and print buyers. For free.

Come to gwg.org for NO COST specifications, test suites, educational information, setup files, white papers, and more.