Discussion has begun to develop the next version of the PPA digital file submission standard Pass 4 Press.


At a meeting held last Friday (23 February), over 30 interested parties sat down to discuss the progress so far and the shape of version 1.1, which will be announced at the PPA production conference in November.


Pass 4 Press has been extremely well received by printers and by the Advertising Pre-Press Association (APPA) whose members supply more than 70% of display ads, said IPC pre-press development and quality control manager Debbie Read, who co-chaired the meeting with Emaps Andy Franks.


Version 1.1 is about fine-tuning, not ripping it up and starting from scratch.


A small committee of interested parties, including printers, ad agencies and a representative from Adobe, will steer the development.


The new version will include detailed specifications for pre-flighting files, which were missing from the original specification.


We all agreed that agencies need to know files have passed flight check before it leaves them, said Read. To simplify the process pre-flighting will focus on the three key requirements of font embedding, resolution and colourspace.


Adoption of Pass 4 Press has been widespread among printers and publishers including Southernprint, Duncan Web Offset, Quebecor and St Ives. Publishers include all
members of the PPA committee and Future. IPC will submit its advertising and editorial work using the format.


Story by Barney Cox