Jdf ??

[asklimek]

Whats with JDF
I know what it is and how long is been out there but it comes and goes in cycles now its back and im still not sure if its worth all the time and effort to change into it like Waldman From Printing Impressions said "JDF to be or not to be" Thats my question. Last week we had a couple of mukamucks in from heildeburg who sold the owner on a new press with JDF capibilites Thats Great buth now how am I suposed to explane that it wont compleatly work with our work flow system i mean i thopught its a start to finish process if you want the full usage of the JDF but just having a press will that realy improve the fact we dont have any REAL pressmen just press operators?
Will it change startup waste to ony 20 shts like they say it will or is this going to be another (Droped on prepress to get it to work) Problem



I am the only prepress, tech, impos, IT, webadmin, designer we have

[Jezza]

In theory JDF will solve all our problems (Joke). It will define a job from beginning to end. All we have to do is open a job with a specification applied and there will be no RGB images/colours and all the other things that can be possibly wrong - depending on the rules applied.

It's an ideal and it may well work, but not for another ten years at the best. You could run the whole lot off bar code...

In theory, JDF will help CSR's, prepress, press, finishing, and the dude driving a forklift around the warehouse. JDF is that flexible, it's a super set of XML.

Don't hold your breath.

[y2b]

I'm starting to set-up several templates for imposition in Rampage...pretty cool...but it's only for certain things

not everything falls into a nice little package in sheetfed commercial printing, especially with ripping files from different apps all the time

[prepress_vee]

So the Xitron Xtreme workflow does not utilize jdf?
I know Preps 4.x is of no use with jdf. But what about your Xitron..?

Remember, something like this has to be done in steps. Building blocks.. you can't just put a "jdf workflow" in your shop in one purchase or at one time. Well in theory you could... But it's going to take time and many different parts & pieces.
You gotta start some where.

Would you have not made the same decision as your boss regarding the press?

[asklimek]

Xenith does work just fine with JDF however the press purchase would not have been my first choice there are many other areas that amount of money could go to help utilize the work flow we have now and inhance out quality and turn around time

when i first started here 7 years ago I was fresh out of college and this shop had Two computers thats it only five years ago we started using preps four years ago xitron and just two years ago CTP prior to that we hand striped all the film we still paste up our own shoppers' guide and shoot it on a vert camera

Right now we are 20 -25 employees in the entire shop and running two workflows some old jobs are still conventional while most (not all) new jobs are Digital

The amount for a NEW Heidelberg could have been spread around to update a whole lot more Like Color mgnt. or press operator training (last year we aquired our first 4 color press) we don't have press men we just have operators.(We now have 2 single color, 2 Two color, one 4/c, and a Goss Web. I think Jezza said it best "It's an ideal and it may well work, but not for another ten years at the best." "Don't hold your breath."