Why digital?

During last three decades, the graphic industry has experienced a true revolution: A trade dominated by craftsmen is now a world of computer nerds; stripping tables, masking tapes, knives and typesetting machines have been replaced by mice, computers and printers. The computers took over word processing and typesetting in the beginning of the 80's. After that, thanks to FreeHand and PageMaker, creating graphs and page layouts was computerised. Later on, when the computers became even more powerful, they took over also in image processing and colour separations. Now, in the last phase, also prepress and composition are being digitised. As a consequence, films, contact frames and cromalines are becoming things of the past. Even the printing process itself is currently being computerised by various digital printing machines.

Also the computer technology has developed in the course of years – and fortunately so. The incompatibilities of the early days are gone by. Fonts and file formats have been standardised; therefore a fully digital workflow has been formed into a reliable and high-quality working method. This development has been greatly enhanced by the pdf file format developed by Adobe. Thanks to the latest format of pdf, all elements of a publication complete with colour separations and fonts are reliably brought through the manufacturing process. Therefore the pdf file format is also being awarded by ISO certification!

Production of graphic publications has been enhanced by faster electronic data communication. The complete material of a print job can now be quickly transferred between editorial offices, advertising agencies and printers. At best, it is now possible to transfer a large magazine in a few hours from the customer's computer screen to the printing machine – even if the customer is located on the other side of the globe!