We reported last week about how Adobe dropped their service program for printers in a post titled, “Adobe drops Print Service Provider Program – a Quark opportunity?“. Today we see an interesting offer from Quark via their Quark Alliance program for printers:

Adobe Service Network members are invited to join QuarkAlliance and Quark Promote output provider programs at no cost

Quark is offering Adobe® Service Network (ASN) members, current QuarkAlliance™ members, and all printers interested in Quark Promote the opportunity to join Quark® output provider programs at no cost. This special offer will expire on June 30, 2010, so act now to take advantage of member benefits that can include:

• Priority technical support
• QuarkXPress® 8 or upgrades
• Increased market visibility
• New potential revenue opportunities

“At a time when some in our industry are moving away from print, Quark is aggressively maintaining its investment in this community,” said Cyndie Shaffstall, director of QuarkAlliance.

Continues – read more: http://www.quarkalliance.com/

Printers- is this interesting for you? What’s your take on this?

I saw this Kodak Social Media guide (Download provided by Kodak) at Print 09 and was pretty impressed.

Impressive was not only the quality of the print job but also the content to help printers and other graphic arts professionals get started with the all important process that goes with online networking. We even posted about it here and Tweeted it out too. Thus it was cool to see this post on Kodak’s blog about how they printed the useful booklet:

Printing of our Social Media Booklets

Paulette Brandes
Interactive Marketing Manager Design & Usability
Rochester, NY, USA

Click here for full article… … …

Printers – another how-to online social networking presentation, this time from NAQP or the National Association of Quick Printers. You saw our last video from Print 09 from T.J. Tedesco here (Social Media Strategies for Printers and the Future of Printing + free Kodak booklet) and now we have this interesting piece, “Using Social Media to Build Business for printers:”

This presentation was done my John Foley, Jr., CEO of interlinkONE and he can be followed on Twitter via @johnfoleyjr. He gave a very good overview on where and how a print-shop can get started with Twitter (oh, yes, check out the Markzware list of Printers on Twitter!), Linkedin, YouTube, FaceBook and more – all of which Markzware is also busy with:

Markzware on FaceBook: FaceBook Group…
Markzware on Twitter: @Markzware
Markzware on YouTube: MarkzwareTV
Markzware RSS feed: RSS Feed…
Markzware on Linkedin: Linkedin Group…

We also did a video series on how a printer can get started with Twitter as well…

Since ICANN, approved the use of non-Latin characters in domain names today, I thought we would stick on the Internet side with this post. Jörg Oyen, the publishing, Adobe and Quark QPS expert friend of ours over in Germany at Oyen.de, sent me a rather ominous Instant message on Skype the other day, “Do you like balls”? he asked. For some reason, I thought, “oh, must be Google Balls” for it sounds very Googlish (sp?) No, he meant Tagul balls or Tagul meta clouds. Here, you can see Jörg’s meta ball from his site here:

Here is the Markzware meta data cloud (no mystery here):

Beware! This Markzware cloud is not complete and this is limitation of Tagul only getting the first 350 keywords or something to that effect. We see FlightCheck in there, but no Q2ID or ID2Q, our popular Quark-to-InDesign and the other way around as well, conversion tools.

Want to see how we made this? Watch the video here, for good control over your meta data, keywords and general SEO is very important for graphic designers, publishers and printers alike (Yes, print-shops included!):

How do you plan on profiting from your online content? Here is an interesting development:

Wikipedia founder ties with HP to add magazine printing platform to Wikia site

Tim Sheahan, printweek.com, 26 October 2009

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has revealed a new tie-up between user-generated information site Wikia and HP’s MagCloud service that will allow users to create and print magazines.

“We are doing all kinds of things like that to think about ways to sustain this idea of participatory culture. We have no idea if this will be popular,” Wales told news agency Reuters.

Users can source content to print from the 3m web pages and more than 50,000 communities presently on Wikia, which is now making a profit for the first time since it was founded five years ago.

MagCloud enables user to produce bespoke glossy, full-bleed, full color magazine printing through a web interface that allows them to select content and do online magazine printing.

HP has also announced it is using its BookPrep digitizing and printing service with the University of Michigan Library to make 500,000 out-of-print books available for on demand digital printing.  Read more... (304 words, estimated 1:13 mins reading time)

We at Markzware have done countless FlightCheck Professional and Q2ID (Quark to InDesign) or ID2Q (Adobe InDesign to QuarkXpress) live presentations. Generally, like most truly behind their computer software, it is best to give the audience a live taste of how the software behaves in a true workflow setting. Yes, I have had my share of bad software demonstrations, which is why this video is all the more funny for me and perhaps for you as well:

I HAVE DECIDED TO DELETE THIS VIDEO FROM WITHIN THIS POST. IT IS STILL LINKED BELOW, BUT AFTER SEEING THE ENTIRE THING (LESSON LEARNED) IT DAWNED ON ME THAT THIS MAY BE OFFENSIVE TO CHRISTIANS OR THOSE WHOM LOST LOVED ONES TO CANCER. SORRY.

GRRF – The Last Lecture from Lumalin Productions on Vimeo.

Whether you are a graphic designer, print production publisher or printer, this GRFF – The Last Lecture video may have you on the print production floor (For you have seen your share of software demo’s, that is for sure!)

We read in this RSS feed, “PDF-PRC and ISO 10303 (aka STEP)” which intrigued me to look further, especially after our last post going on about the Evolution of PDF; Adobe PDF/X-5g with OPI type prepress workflow. We read:

“The PRC format Adobe introduced in Acrobat 9 accommodates both precise B-rep and surface tessellation data as well as product structure, Product Manufacturing Information (PMI) and metadata.”

OK, fair enough, but many of you may still be asking, ‘what is this Adobe PDF-PRC exactly?’ It is a spec, like the 3D STEP file format, for architects, industrial designers and more broadly, engineering documentation, as we can further read from the source feed:  Read more... (309 words, estimated 1:14 mins reading time)

• Design re-use : STEP is more appropriate for pulling data into a CAD system and making modifications, and although there are now direct B-Rep modeling systems that enable using PRC this way, use of STEP will provide much higher fidelity.
• Visualization : PRC targets this use case squarely while STEP ignores it.
• Technical Publications like process planning, work instructions, repair operations : PRC is better for this we think as it is lighter weight and includes visualization information.

While reading, “Symbols: the alphabet of human thought” I came across an interesting one regarding printers and publishers from hundreds of years ago. The orb and cross was the symbol most used by them to leave their mark (aka a “printers mark”* or logotype*; as in the colophon), in the days just after Johannes Gutenberg founded moving type and the modern printing press:

This semester we will be looking at printer’s devices (symbols) used to identify the printer or publisher of a book. Many early printers use the orb and the cross which signified the earth and Christianity, shown above left. This particular version is the mark of Joannes de Colonia of Venice, 1481. Image source orb

On the right is a contemporary printer’s mark by Paul Moxon for his Fameorshame press. He explains, “A related sign the orb and cross, ‹literally the earth surmounted by the cross› is also the alchemical symbol for antimony an ingredient in type metal. Long before the development of printing, the 4 had been a mark of merchants to identify their wares. … 20th century master bookmen who have adapted the orb and four include: Warren Chappell and Fritz Kredel, Koch, & Giovanni Mardersteig, among others, chose the orb and cross. Moxon quote and image source
Source: http://www.designhistory.org/symbols.html  Read more... (415 words, 1 image, estimated 1:40 mins reading time)

The age-old art and process of Letterpress printing. It is not just for show, for although it carves a far superior mark and ink distribution on paper than any modern printing press, it is also a functional way to reproduce words on paper for distribution.

Watch this neat movie on the art of Letterpress printing here:

“.. puts a bite into paper like no other digital press…” History of printing – the letterpress:

http://elsa.photo.net/video/firefly.mov

Did you notice the “damaged characters” issue? let’s call that “preflight!”

And, check this out, there is an entire Letterpress movement going on. Very interesting:  Read more... (427 words, 1 image, estimated 1:42 mins reading time)

Here is an nice initiative from a print-shop in the U.K.- online school for print buyers:

Manchester-based printer Frederik Law has launched an online ‘Print School’ aimed at helping customers get the most out of the medium.
The print school section of the company’s website offers a resource for those new to design and small business owners to help them get to grips with print terminology. It also includes best practice guides that are open for users to comment on and ask questions.

Frederick Law managing director Nicky Acton said: “Quite frequently our customers are unsure what certain printing terms mean, we are more than happy to explain but felt an online resource would be helpful.

“We also find it common for graphic designers new to print to send us what they consider to be print ready documents, yet they are missing vital things such as crop marks and bleed. By providing an online print school we are offering our knowledge and experience with an opportunity for people to comment or ask questions.”
Source: PrintWeek UK

You can check out the informative, educational site on how to prepare files for print and output to Adobe PDF here:  Read more... (236 words, 1 image, estimated 57 secs reading time)