Received this InMail from a connection on Linkedin, one of the many in response to our popular post on the history of desktop publishing late last week and wanted to share it with you all… Congratulations Mike!

Re: Desktop Publishing turns 25…
From: Mike Hilton
Date: January 24, 2010
To: David Dilling

Hi David,

And so too is Graphic Repro – having launched in SA in 1985 – the year everything started to move from Electronic Publishing…

Best regards,
Mike Hilton

>> Regarding David Dilling LinkedIn Status:: David Desktop Publishing turns 25 ? Aldus-Adobe-Macromedia-Quark. Timeline: http://bit.ly/8xo3EA (Fitting w/ Apple tablet on way)

This is shared with Mike’s permission and he added that one can learn more about the history of Graphic Repro magazine and it’s present day online site and thus printing via the hyper link.

Personally I will add that his weekly email newsletter is a must-read. I like the jam-packed format filled with the latest news from not only the South African print, prepress and publishing market, but really from the world. The “Technology-related articles” near the bottom is nice to keep an eye on as well!  Read more... (202 words, 1 image, estimated 48 secs reading time)

“Electronic books may transform publishing industry” read the title on MarketWatch.com and the tag-line was, “Executives discuss impact of e-books at Frankfurt Books Fair.”

By Polya Lesova, MarketWatch

FRANKFURT (MarketWatch) — Electronic books may transform not only the publishing industry, but the very definition of what constitutes a book. E-books — whether read on an iPhone, a Kindle or a laptop — are a hot topic at this week’s Frankfurt Book Fair.

“Books are just devices. Wikipedia is the new Britannica,” said Ronald Schild, managing director of Germany-based MVB Marketing- und Verlagsservice des Buchhandels GmbH.

“Digital content is superior in many ways,” Schild said Thursday at a panel discussion on electronic books at the fair. “Reading today is solitary process, but there are many other ways of reading. [In the future,] it may become more of a conversation.”

While electronic books still account for only a small part of global publishing, their popularity is growing. Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN ) , which sells the electronic-book reader Kindle, is facing growing competition from other e-reader producers. In addition, many users are reading electronic content on their laptops, PCs and multi-functional mobile devices such as Apple Inc.’s (AAPL 189.91, -1.39, -0.72%) iPhone.  Read more... (692 words, estimated 2:46 mins reading time)

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)