Job Ticket Stays With PDFs Right Up To Production

The Ghent PDF Workgroup (GWG) has made available the first in a series of Job Tickets to come from the group - Ad Ticket.

The Ghent PDF Workgroup (GWG) has made available the first in a series of Job Tickets to come from the group - Ad Ticket.

The GWG Ad Ticket is an Adobe Acrobat custom XMP panel that attaches to a PDF file, and is designed to provide meta data about the advertisement represented by the PDF.

Using the GWG Ad Ticket, detailed and useful information, such as media agency (buyer name), creative agency, pre-press name and contact information, including telephone and email details, advertiser name, first publication date and production information (such as publication name, colour description, size, width, bleed and correction remarks) all follow a PDF from creation through to production.

Each GWG Ad Ticket includes 13 required and nine optional fields that are compatible with AdsML, which is the initiative supported by Ifra, the international association for media publishing.

In addition, it is supported by the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) and the Idealliance organisation in XML-based standards development for the graphic communications industry.

GWG Ad Tickets share the same 'tags' as AdsML.

Similarly, the group will continue to maintain close contact with AdsML regarding developments within standards organisations and develop compatible systems.

Stephane Georges of Dalim Software, and chairperson for the GWG Job Ticket subcommittee said: "There is a strong need for stakeholders to get more information about the files they exchange, especially in the advertising sector.

By promoting the standard that is already compatible with AdsML, we expect a quick adoption of our best practice specifications." The GWG Ad Ticket was successfully developed with active collaboration and technical support from GWG member Medibel+, the organisation that unites the Belgian advertising sector.

Ad Ticket is an extension of the existing Medibel+ Ad ticket, conforming 100 per cent with Medibel+ advertising content.

"We've taken the concepts for Medibel+ job tickets and we matched to AdsML job tickets, creating a truly open format that can be shared and used by as many users globally as possible," explained Georges.

The GWG Job Ticket subcommittee is an AdsML-compatible GWG Ad Ticket component available free from the organisation's website.

According to GWG, the Job Ticket subcommittee investigates and defines best practices regarding different forms of job tickets.

In addition to the implementation of the first Ad Ticket, the group will focus on future implementations of XMP and JDF.

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