2007 – PDF 1.7, XMF, Dropbox & EBM

PDF 1.7 becomes an official ISO-standard (ISO 32000) in December 2007. The final specs are published in March 2008. For the next 10 years, until the release of PDF 2.0, the file format will essentially remain unchanged. This is not a bad thing since the PDF is by now a mature technology and it gives the industry the time to fully come to grips with its use.

That same year Adobe discontinues development and support of FreeHand, the drawing application that it acquired through its merger with Macromedia.

Esko and Artwork Systems merge to become EskoArtwork. A number of employees who are not too happy with the merger will later join Hybrid Software which is founded that same year. It will take Hybrid Software 10 years to become a major competitor of Esko. Hybrid Software

Fuji starts shipping XMF, its new print production workflow which is based on PDF and the Adobe PDF Print Engine.

Fujifilm XMF logo

The New York Public Library install the first Espresso Book Machine. This print-on-demand system combines a printer with a collating, binding and cutting unit. It can print a 300-page book in 4 minutes.

Espresso Book machine

In Israel Scodix is founded with the goal of becoming a leading provider of digital print enhancement presses. Its first press is shown in 2010 at the IPEX trade show.
Scodix logo

Inca launches the first of its series of Onset inkjet printers.

Social networks are the craze of the day so it is appropriate to mention that Prepressforums, the largest and best prepress related forum on the web, is bought by PrintPlanet. A lot of regular visitors migrate to the B4print forums.

In the USA 19.6 million catalogs are sent to customers and prospects. This is the highest number ever, in the next ten years that volume will roughly get halved. The graph below is based on statistics from the Data & Marketing Association.

USA market for catalogs

Dropbox is founded in San Francisco, California. It offers cloud storage with automatic file synchronization and quickly becomes popular in the graphic arts market for exchanging files.

Chili Pepper (Pantone 19-1557) is the color of the year.

In its third reincarnation, this site moves from using static Dreamweaver pages to a database driven WordPress system.

De La Rue Currency designs the Scottish 50-pound banknote. It is the banknote of the year.

Scotland 50 pound note

Robert Slimbach names his Arno typeface after the river that runs through Florence where many 15th and 16th century typefaces originated.

Arno Pro typeface example


These are some important or remarkable events from 2007:

  • Nicolas Sarkozy becomes the new French president while Gordon Brown replaces Tony Blair as the prime minister of Great Britain.
  • The USA increases its number of troops in Iraq, again.
  • Abdullah Gul becomes the first Islamist president in Turkey’s recent history.
  • The sub-prime mortgage crisis starts. At least 100 US mortgage companies either shut down, are sold or suspend operations.
  • More than 12,000 writers join the Guild of America strike, also known as the Writers’ Strike.

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