Case Study: How a full-service university print and publishing service reduced its prepress problems by 75 percent by restricting its file intake to PDF and EPS and helping clients and internal staff grasp an all-PDF workflow.The University of New South Wales Printing and Publishing division supports a university populated by over 40,000 students in 600 undergraduate programs and postgraduate academic programs, with over 5,000 full-time staff housed in 76 schools, 69 research centers, six institutes, four teaching hospitals and eight residential colleges.
Charting a long-term future toward all PDF
Most large print and publishing agencies make it their primary focus to lower costs associated with print jobs and reducing overtime labor costs while managing those jobs.
For the University of New South Wales Printing and Publishing division, supporting and meeting the challenge of operating a full-time publishing and printing division meant embracing the power and functionality of PDFs and charting a long-term future toward an all-PDF workflow.
Simon Corderoy is the prepress coordinator and network administrator of the Publishing and Printing Services for the University. Corderoy relates the problems his department aimed to address by making the move toward a full PDF-based workflow.
"When I joined the department it was a motley mix of 'off the glass' work, native electronic DTP files, MS Word and PowerPoint files and a small proportion of PDF and postscript files. These were submitted directly to the appropriate RIP (rasterized image processor), prayers were said and proof was printed.
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"Depending on the results the file was either printed or passed back to prepress for amendment. If the file was unfixable it would be sent back to the client with a list of faults."
At many print shops, the impetus for changing the workflow is economic, but it was different for the University Press, according to Corderoy. "We were a cost recovery entity. We were not allowed to register a profit and we were required to provide the lowest price possible to university clients. Our driving force for change was simplification. We wanted to reduce the number of file formats we were receiving. Changes in funding policy over recent years have shown our decision to be a fortuitous one," said Corderoy.
Initial Challenges to Change
Corderoy and his counterparts initially recognized the need for refining their print workflow in 2001: "There was a big shift in the makeup of jobs submitted. Off-the-glass work began to reduce dramatically while MS Word files and native DTP files increased, especially Word files. We were also dealing with the usual culprits. Missing fonts, text re-flowing, RGB images in color jobs, broken image links," said Corderoy.
The University Press faced significant client challenges in moving toward a wholly PDF-based workflow.
"Some of the major challenges came straight out of the Microsoft format and its lack of CMYK support. A lot of our clients use MS products to create documents. We also had to deal with RGB images, lack of postscript support, and an unwillingness to follow print industry standards, etc. Other challenges were clients who were unfamiliar with PDFs, technological inertia and embedded practices in various departments (i.e. 'We've always submitted hard-copy' mind set.)
"We addressed these issues by narrowing our file acceptance standards. Client education was essential. Where necessary, we even went out on-site to show clients how to create PDFs from their MS files."
Read the full story on PDFzone.com: University Press Speeds Turnaround by Pushing Clients to an All-PDF Workflow
