Enfocus technology for the graphic arts market and solutions

EskoArtwork has recently announced the acquisition of Gradual Software and that the staff, assets and technology of Gradual were merging in the operations of EskoArtwork Enfocus. The new resulting entity is operating as a business unit within EskoArtwork group, under the brand name Enfocus. The following are the underlying reasons for the merger of Enfocus and Gradual.

The sector of the Professional Edition must face considerable pressure to improve productivity, increase predictability and motivate workers through the automation of routine tasks. Although the industry already includes islands of automation, real efficiencies that offers only the automation can be achieved by connecting these islands and creating a unified workflow from beginning to end.

The automation of daily tasks in all areas of the publishing workflow includes for example the creative design or editing and mounting.

This challenge is especially complex because the authorship and design almost always carried out in organizations away from operators who manage the prepress and printing, and different organizations often use software and workflow independent and incompatible. The work passed to the next stage of the production process in a variety of standard and non standard formats generally insufficient to properly inform the process data.

The network of relationships between the different participants is very complex and differs depending on the own points of view; for example, an editor can work with several independent designers, and in turn, each of them can work for various publishers. No single-use workflow system can provide a complete solution for the heterogeneous network. A new approach, that supports the implementation of step by step solutions among several participants from different organizations using different systems and tools is required.

This approach leads us to mention some key attributes of the solutions that Enfocus brings to the market and plans to develop in the future:

-Affordable in terms of prices of purchase, implementation and training.

-Pipelined step by step, starting with a small size and with clear benefits after each phase.

-Highly configurable and applicable to a wide range of segments from previous media workflows.

-Fully compatible with interfaces connected to third-party systems, allowing to unite the existing islands of automation.

Modular and compatible with the best technology of third parties in the market.

This philosophy differs from the conventional production of print workflow systems or centralized publishing systems, which often contain components from a single provider, require substantial initial investment and often remain focused on a single domain of workflow. Enfocus aims to satisfy deficiencies which do not solve these systems, providing solutions to the segments of workflow of the editing process which so far have been left aside in the global momentum towards automation.

The web community Enfocus CertifiedPDF.net offers the possibility of easily sharing standards among different participants in the flow of work.

There are three fundamental preconditions to enable the Automation (in other words, to avoid the need for human intervention):

-A central automation network to transmit and send jobs.

-Work (representations of content) which meet certain agreed standards of quality.

-The corresponding metadata attached to the work to inform of the automated process.

The aim is to allow the automation of daily tasks in all areas of the publishing workflow, including for example the creative design or editing and mounting, in addition to the work of production of the final phase. To achieve this broad objective, it is necessary that the administrator of the system or the central network of automation expert user can configure it easily, and that it is connected through an interface to a wide range of systems, tools and applications used frequently, including channels of communication. Enfocus Switch product family has been established taking into account these objectives, and will continue to grow in this line.

To make the users feel comfortable with the automated process, this process must be guaranteed a certain level of quality in the final result (and the work of an inferior quality should reject in time to enable operators to consider). Therefore, the establishment and imposition of quality standards suitable (through validation and correction) are essential to achieve a reliable automation.

Enfocus Certified PDF technology - and all the applications that support this - have precisely this purpose. Enfocus Instant PDF facilitates the creation of PDF that meet a certain standard was agreed. Enfocus PitStop Server is compatible with the automated verification (and often even with correction) of PDF files from the design phase, or rather than entering the production phase.

The Advanced Edition of production tools Enfocus PitStop Professional (a plug-in for Adobe Acrobat Professional) and Enfocus Neo (a stand-alone application) allow the functions of review and correction required when a problem arises, and to resolve certain complexities that can not be settled automatically.

The web community Enfocus CertifiedPDF.net offers the possibility of easily sharing standards among different participants in the flow of work.

A structured exchange of descriptive information about a job as well as its content is needed to achieve an automated workflow. This descriptive information is commonly referred to as metadata. The use of metadata to submit papers or configure parameters of the process is crucial for the automation, and various kinds of metadata to connect an interface to third-party systems must support.

Enfocus Switch product family offers sending and processing of work based on metadata, including several standards based on XML. The Enfocus Certified PDF technology embeds metadata in PDF files to control the quality and provide an audit trail.

This assessment on the inclusion of the automation in the professional publishing industry identifies several important technological axes for Enfocus in the coming years.

The central network of workflow capabilities need to be strengthened to support technologies like Soap communication and consultations on SQL database directly. This will allow Switch to easily connect with solutions from third parties such as the Dam, systems systems my and editorial workflow systems.

Although the PDF is firmly established in the publishing market, it may not be always the only format used portable document. For example, presented as an innovation by Microsoft XPS format can gain importance in publication of office environments. At the same time, new standards related to PDF as PDF/A and PDF/E promise greater use of the PDF in new fields such as archiving and long term engineering. Enfocus is logical to extend technologies that guarantee the quality to new formats like these.

Metadata such as EXIF, IPTC, XMP, JDF standards and other standards based on XML, are common in several areas of the flow of documents. With the exception of the principal systems (including the commercialized by EskoArtwork), often becomes insufficient metadata use, especially when exchanging work between systems. Future products from Enfocus will contribute in this area by reducing the barrier to access and use metadata.

Verification of work compared with agreed quality standards remains one of the main factors that allow better automation. Clearly, Enfocus deepens and comprehensive commitment to preflight and correction technologies related to the contents of documents and its metadata. Also, Enfocus will continue to promote the standards and specifications of the sector in this area.

Profile

Peter Camps began his career as a developer of software in the enterprise DISC, with headquarters in Ghent, who developed systems of prepress for forms, labels and packaging. Through a series of acquisitions and mergers, DISC became one of the main members of the current group EskoArtwork.

In 1993, Camps founded Enfocus Software and served as CEO for 10 years, while the company established its famous suite of PDF tools on the market. Later, Peter founded Gradual Software to develop automation tools for the different stages of the activities of Professional Edition. Switch product family, which today includes branded Enfocus, constitutes an important first step in this mission.

Currently, Camps works as Senior Vice President of Enfocus at the EskoArtwork group.