Have you ever heard of PDF/X-5g (see below), an OPI similar prepress workflow involving PDF’s? Here was an interesting download from an Adobe Blog titled, “On the Evolution of PDF” by Jim King. It goes over PDF compatibility issues with Acrobat reader, Acrobat and what will be addressed in the next Adobe update or future Adobe updates. Here was the section that is most relevant us in electronic publishing, prepress and printing:

6.0  PDF Profiles (i.e., subsets)
Many proper profiles of PDF have become ISO standards. They allow support for various vertical markets more effectively than open-ended PDF might. These standards efforts also bring together a group of knowledgeable and experienced people in those vertical markets. Here is the current list of ISO standards that are subsets of PDF:
6.1  PDF/X (ISO 15930) – targeted for prepress workflows.
• ISO 15930-1:2001: PDF/X-1a:2001, Blind exchange in CMYK + Spot Colors, based
on PDF 1.3
• ISO 15930-3:2002: PDF/X-3:2002, Allows CMYK, Spot, Calibrated (managed) RGB,
CIELAB, with ICC Profile, based on PDF 1.3.
• ISO 15930-4:2003: PDF/X-1a:2003, revision of PDF/X-1a:2001 based on PDF 1.4
• ISO 15930-5: PDF/X-2, An extension of PDF/X-3 which allows for OPI-like (external
linked) data to be included
• ISO 15930-6:2003: PDF/X-3:2003, revision of PDF/X-3:2002 based on PDF 1.4
• ISO 15930-7:2008: PDF/X-4, Colour-managed, CMYK, gray, RGB or spot colour data
are supported, as are PDF transparency and optional content. A second conformance
level named PDF/X-4p may be used when the ICC Profile in the output intent is exter-
nally supplied.
• ISO 15930-8:2008 PDF/X-5,a collection of three conformance levels:  Read more... (514 words, estimated 2:03 mins reading time)

Here is a great survey on PDF preflight, that which many also call postflight, which was introduced in this blog post:

Posted by Marco on Jun 23, 2009 in cPDF
In 2008 Enfocus wanted to find out who exactly their clients were. They held a survey. 4.840 users responded. Now who was using what kind of software and on what platform? Where do they live? What’s their primary business? How frequently do they use PDF-files? Do they even check incoming PDF files? And… what were the errors those files contained? See: http://www.digital-engineer.net/archive/entry/preflighters-around-the-world-this-is-you/

The most common preflight problems with PDF print-jobs.

About half have see their print destined PDF’s failing often and the most common problems are non embedded fonts, low res image usage and RGB color space used. Exactly what the problems were about fifteen years ago (Replace non-embedded fonts with missing fonts.) when Markzware first brought out FlightCheck Professional, which can postflight PDF files from Adobe Acrobat (and other software’s) as well as a range of source or native files like XPress, InDesign, MSPublisher and more. View the full survey results here.

Specials going on FlightCheck- save 20-50%! See:
http://www.markzware.com/promotions/  Read more... (208 words, 1 image, estimated 50 secs reading time)

Here is an interesting piece from Dr. Joe of WhatTheyThink.com titled, “June 10 Economic Webinar Q&A.” This bit on the average number of employees at a printer and it’s potential relation to graphic designers taking on more of the role of prepress is what I wanted us to zoom in on here:

Q.  Is the average size of successful printing companies increasing or decreasing? Sales volume and or employee count as a measure.

A. Sales are down and our industry has a habit of calibrating itself by adding or shedding businesses as needed. The inflation-adjusted sales per employee is actually remarkably steady, which indicates this. The average size of a commercial printing business has been on a very slow decline for decades. It was around 26 employees in the late 1980s and was just above 19 by 2006. That says more about desktop publishing replacing prepress than it says about anything else.
Source: http://members.whattheythink.com/home/drjoe269.cfm  Read more... (460 words, estimated 1:50 mins reading time)