The Ghent Workgroup has announced that Esko Share & Approve has passed a critical test for determining quality displaying of PDF/X-4 documents, and is now fully compliant with the Ghent PDF Output Suite 5.

As the package printing industry increasingly embraces PDF/X-4, Esko, a global provider of integrated hardware and software solutions for packaging, label and wide format customers, is supporting prepress professionals in this transition phase with its Share & Approve cloud solution. Esko Share & Approve has now passed the compliancy test with the Ghent PDF Output Suite 5, processing all 48 test patches without any problems.

Esko Share & Approve is a cloud-based tool to upload, share, annotate and approve packaging and labels, in realistic 3D.

“Esko believes out-of-the-box compliancy with standards like PDF/X-4 is crucial since this reduces errors and increases productivity in the supply chain. Therefore, we are proud that Esko Share & Approve, Esko’s brand new cloud platform for approval of packaging and labels, passed the Ghent PDF Output Suite 5 tests without any problems,” says Lieven Plettinck, director of software engineering at Esko.

The Ghent Workgroup PDF Output Suite version 5.0 ensures workflows are fully compliant with PDF/X-4 to help the printing and packaging industry reach higher levels of production accuracy. It is distributed as a series of PDF patches, each testing a specific property of a PDF/X-4 file. 48 of these patches are amalgamated to six pages that can be easily applied and evaluated by end users of graphic arts applications as well as developers handling PDF files.

Results of processing the output suite in an Esko Share & Approve workflow were verified by the GWG Process Control Subcommittee and assessed as fully compliant.

Stephan Jaeggi, co-chair of the GWG Process Control Subcommittee, adds, “I am happy about the addition of Esko Share & Approve to our fast-growing list of applications compliant to the Ghent PDF Output Suite 5. It is important that not only output workflows are compliant but also viewing and approval applications. They must correctly display the intended result at any time.”