Quark Inc.

In a world of ever-tightening deadlines and faster production cycles, color proofing is a major stumbling block. Time is required to make the proof, especially in an analog workflow, and delivery and review add to that time. And while nothing can be done about either the creation or review stages of proofing, the delivery of the proof is an area that would seem ripe for compacting. Or at least that's what we've been hearing for some time now. Yet remote proofing is used for just a small fraction of all print materials produced. Why? If service is one of the primary differentiators between companies—a debatable

There's an interesting controversy raging in our business right now that harkens back to the good old days when we had "The Great Page Layout Wars." Remember those wars? Aldus PageMaker vs. MacPublisher (win to PageMaker). PageMaker vs. Letraset Ready!Set!Go! (win to PageMaker). PageMaker vs. Ventura Publisher (win to PageMaker, eventually). And then QuarkXPress vs. PageMaker. Now, that was some war! The battles raged for years. When PageMaker was an Aldus product, it seemed like PageMaker was winning the war. Then Aldus sold PageMaker to Adobe. It should have been a good hand-off. Adobe has always been a solid player, well-entrenched in offering high-quality software

Premedia and its role in the changing print landscape is the prime directive of Mary Lee Schneider—and she's taking her directive all the way to Dusseldorf, Germany. BY MARIE RANOIA ALONSO Imagine you are chiefly responsible for the premedia directions, investments and operations of one of the largest companies in the world. Imagine that company is giant R.R. Donnelley & Sons. Imagine it is your responsibility to be current on all the new prepress trends, on-press imaging moves and Internet directions impacting—and readying to impact —the commercial printing industry. Hold that thought. Now, imagine you are attending DRUPA 2000 in Dusseldorf, Germany, this month

Internet companies are exploding onto the commercial printing scene, which means new ways for printers to purchase products, communicate with customers and improve efficiency. BY CAROLINE MILLER (Editor's Note: This is the first in a continuing series that profiles real-life examples of printers and their usage of various e-commerce services.) You would have to be living in a cave not to have noticed the explosion of Internet companies springing up to provide every kind of imaginable service. Actually, living in a cave is no longer an excuse—even caves seem to come equipped with Web browsers these days. So it's no surprise that the

The DRUPA exhibition, scheduled for May 18-31, in Dusseldorf, Germany, is now just one month away. Digital prepress technology trends targeting the international show include new PDF-based workflows, new color management tools and a variety of solutions to further automate front-end functionality. To map out the digital prepress direction of DRUPA 2000, Printing Impressions went direct to the sources . . . Vector VersatilityDennis Aubrey, CEO of the Altamira Group, on the limitless nature of images at DRUPA 2000 and into the next year—when digital images are no longer restricted in size or resolution. The year 2000 will see a production world in which

The sea of e-commerce companies is expanding; Seybold Boston was wired, so to speak, to the Internet. printCafe, a new Internet endeavor, captured the most attention at the Boston show last month, but so did new digital workflows, color management tools and Adobe's latest—a bridge for PDF. BY MARIE RANOIA ALONSO Walking into Seybold Boston last month it seemed almost unbelievable that the words Internet and startup are still synonymous. Everywhere you looked, it was dotcom this, dotcom that—if you stood still too long, you were at serious risk of finding a dotcom appearing after your last name on your Seybold badge. Then

The flood gates are open—digital presses for commercial printers are no longer one size fits all. There are enough devices to tempt the commercial printing community. From the zealous prepress provider to the comprehensive of one-stop printing operations: Specialization is the new mandate for the digital press in on-demand printing, variable or not. BY MARIE RANOIA ALONSO Quick. What is a prime directive of the best of the best commercial printers when it comes to exploring new digital technologies for print? Be receptive to embrace emerging digital printing technologies? Be proactive with contemporary and unique marketing initiatives to promote new digital

With the holidays approaching only too rapidly, I thought it time to generate a wish list for the folks whose primary responsibility it is to make sure that the bits and bytes turn into spots and dots. With all the jousting that goes on in our industry, a little peace on earth and goodwill among men and women sounds like a good thing. Let's face it: There's really no bad equipment out on the market, just different approaches that each come with their own compromises and drawbacks, as well as features and benefits. Of course, we all end up with our preferences as to how to

The seminar business is really a branch of show business. There are hits and there are flops. And sometimes it's completely mysterious why one show is a hit and another a flop. Working with Seybold Seminars for the last few years, I've observed the mysterious situation whereby some of the conferences are a much greater success than others. And the exact reason can be tough to pin down. (If it was easy, they'd always be hits!) This year's Seybold San Francisco program was an extraordinary success. Several people told me that it was the best conference they'd been to in the last few years. I'm not

Gurus of management love to publish books with titles like "Reinventing the Corporation." And while many of this genre provide useful information about breaking down corporate barriers—usually internal ones—they assume that the reader works in a large corporate environment. Sadly, this is of little help to managers of the average commercial printing company or trade shop, whose employees are often numbered in two digits. Yet, the impact of technological change is just as large in a 25-person prepress firm as it is for a giant corporation such as Applied Graphics Technologies. Therefore, this month's pontification will try to address workflow re-engineering in our little