JDF is an industry standard designed to simplify the information exchange between different applications and systems across the Prepress, Press and Postpress areas of the printing workflow. JDF, an extensible, XML based, format has the capability to streamline the complexities of the print production.
Celstream has developed a Step and Repeat Layout Plug-in for Adobe® Acrobat®. This Plug-in was used to layout multiple copies of a source page on a user specified target sheet, resulting in minimum wastage of print consumables. Further, it offers users the flexibility to specify layout parameters like vertical and horizontal spacing, alignment and page rotation.
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Highlights |
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- JDF enabled plug-in for Imposition
- Multi-OS Support
- Feature-rich Imposition solution offering print efficiencies
- Reduction in paper wastage, leading to cost savings
- Open Source components resulting in faster and reduced cost of development
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Celstream needed an understanding of the JDF format in detail and build JDF compliance for all relevant layout parameters. The JDF had to be parsed to extract the layout information from the file and then passed on to the Layout Engine which would process it accordingly. Some of the challenges involved in developing the Plug-in were:
- Full compliance to JDF Specifications
- Output to be platform independent
- Plug-in to support both Macintosh® and Windows® environments
Since the retrieval needed to happen in a platform independent manner and be supported on various Operating Systems, multiple releases and tests were required.
Working independently, Celstream's team of experts developed the JDF enabled Plug-in offering the ability to enhance and streamline the production process.
Platform independent parsing mechanisms on the Libxml library bundled with the Mac OS® were used. On Windows®, the library was statically linked with the Plug-in. A wrapper was developed by the team which would insulate the complexities of working with Libxml library from the developers of the Plug-in.
Concurrent Versioning System (CVS) was used to manage the software program that was developed. The team adopted a flexible methodology to follow all relevant processes during the development cycle.
Validation of all functionalities on both Windows® and Macintosh® Operating Systems was performed. |
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A Novel Solution |
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This imposition Plug-in was an independent initiative of Celstream. Integrating the Plug-in with the JDF-based workflow allowed greater throughput of work enabling larger pagination jobs to be processed a lot quicker.
This also ensured that the generated output would have minimum wastage.
Celstream's team was able to quickly grasp and master the technology and domain knowledge to develop a customizable JDF enabled imposition solution. |
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In developing this solution, Celstream used the following key platforms and technologies:
- Windows®
- Macintosh®
- Adobe®, Acrobat®, Plug-in Architecture
- Acrobat®PDF
- Standard Template Library (STL)
- XML
- JDF
- C/C++
- Libxml 2.0
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