Alan Darling

BY MARK SMITH Technology Editor Since the earliest days of the digital revolution in prepress, choosing a data format has brought trade-offs in file flexibility, portability and processing consistency. For almost as long, the unique requirements of the print advertising workflow have driven a quest to achieve a universal workflow. Now, more than 10 years after its introduction, Adobe PDF (Portable Document Format) is finally providing a foundation for realizing that goal in advertising applications and beyond. The effort to establish an open, yet predictable, workflow started with DDES (Digital Data Exchange Standard). It took a sustained effort by the DDAP (Digital Distribution

MARBLEHEAD, MA—The DDAP Association, an industry group charged with promoting the "Universal Exchange of Digital Advertising through Open Process Integration and Accredited Standards," held its annual conference in New Orleans recently. The DDAP conference focused on fine-tuning digital ad workflows through the use of standard accredited file formats, the SWOP specification, new color management strategies and other future initiatives. The conference brought together representatives from more than 130 ad agencies, publishers, prepress providers, printers and software developers to learn new digital strategies. Each day of the conference was dedicated to a different aspect of digital workflows. Day one focused on PDF/X and TIFF/IT. Day