Adobe and Xerox

Adobe and Xerox Announce Strategic Initiative to Promote Print Production Workflow Standards
September 30, 2003 08:06:00 AM ET



SAN JOSE, Calif. & CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 30, 2003-- Adobe PDF, JDF, XML and PostScript Technologies Incorporated Into Xerox FreeFlow Initiative

Adobe Systems Incorporated ADBE and Xerox Corporation XRX today announced an initiative to jointly support and promote the widespread adoption of emerging print industry standards for both static and variable information workflow technologies. The standards include Adobe(R) Portable Document Format (PDF), JDF (Job Definition Format) job ticketing, Adobe PostScript(R), XML (Extensible Markup Language), and variable information workflow technologies.

The initiative is part of Xerox FreeFlow Digital Workflow Collection that improves digital workflow -- the process by which print jobs make their way from creation through final production and fulfillment.

"Together, Xerox and Adobe have led the transition to desktop publishing and digital printing," said Gil Hatch, president, Production Systems Group, Xerox Corporation. "Industry standards are critically important in variable information and print-on-demand production workflows, and in taking these businesses to the next level of growth and profit potential. We will work together to develop solutions that enable creators, producers and all other participants in the print value chain to capture the rich opportunities available through digital technologies."

"Adobe and Xerox share a heritage and a set of demanding customers who require great products and a set of robust industry standard print technologies they can build their businesses around," said Jim Heeger, senior vice president of Creative Professional Products at Adobe. "The integration of Adobe software across a range of Xerox Freeflow products will help our customers as they move to more efficient print workflows based on Adobe PDF and emerging standards such as JDF."

Adobe technologies are incorporated throughout the latest release of the Xerox FreeFlow Digital Workflow Collection.

-- Xerox DigiPath Production Software 4.0 with Adobe Acrobat(R), PDF Libraries and PDF plug-in support as part of a full and robust Adobe PDF workflow. Adobe PDF is supported throughout all of DigiPath's functionality, including scanning, preflight, imposition, editing, storage, viewing and printing.

-- Xerox DocuSP 3.7 Controllers for production printing with Adobe PostScript 3, PDF Libraries and Normalizer solutions for reliable, consistent print output, native PDF consumption and the highest quality PPML support.

-- The Xerox VIPP Thin Printer for high-volume production, tagging and delivery of optimized Adobe PDFs from the same print data streams used for production printing, using Adobe Acrobat, Distiller(R) Server and PDF Libraries. These PDF files can be used for single or multi-set proofs, archiving, electronic distribution, and Web presentment of variable data documents produced from Xerox VIPP applications.

As part of the new initiative, Adobe and Xerox are undertaking joint efforts to drive acceptance of the JDF standard for job ticketing, and to develop integrated solutions that leverage the strengths of their respective variable data printing technologies. Both companies embrace PostScript, PDF, XML and variable data print streams to provide the broadest possible range of one-to-one business applications. Consistent with these priorities, Xerox is supporting the latest PPML Graphic Arts Conformance Subset standard across its line of production products and one-to-one solutions architecture.