The online survey, which polled 21,000 customers and was carried out by independent research company ReadexResearch, shows that the use of Enfocus Certified PDF® has increased to 60%, compared to 30% just two years ago.

Enfocus Certified PDF® is an automation-enabling technology used for efficient quality control while managing a large volume of PDFs. Certified PDFs are immediately identified and moved through production faster than non-Certified PDF® files.

The survey also indicates that the Ghent PDF Workgroup, (www.gwg.org), of which Enfocus is a founding member, has had a substantial effect on the adoption of PDF standards. In the Netherlands and Belgium over 40% of the sample audience has standardized operations on the PDF/X-based Ghent PDF Workgroup settings. Nearly 80% believe this has increased the reliability of their production process. In France both the adoption of, and satisfaction with, the standardization efforts is also very high.

“Belgium, the Netherlands and France were the first countries in which the local industry associations took a very organized and communicative approach to implementing these standards. The results show that this has been a worthwhile exercise. We are now looking into new opportunities to extend this success further into Europe and worldwide,” says Tom Peire, Director of Marketing at Enfocus.

Companies Standardizing on Enfocus Certified PDF® on the Rise
As far as Certified PDF®, Enfocus’ patent pending technology, is concerned; the survey results are extremely encouraging: In addition to – and more importantly -- than the afore-mentioned 60% usage take-up, 15% of users say they have standardized their operation on Certified PDF® (compared to just 5% in 2003).

Certified PDF® is complementary to the standardization work of the Ghent PDF Workgroup and other industry associations. It extends the power of PDF by embedding the PDF Profile that was used to preflight the file, and also creates a detailed preflight report, and audit trail of all edits made to the PDF document.

Certified PDF® technology is integrated in all Enfocus products, and is increasingly becoming the major incentive to purchase Enfocus software packages. Peire says: “We are happy to see that our educational efforts concerning the need for process standardization have paid off. We are even more excited to note that Certified PDF® is adding significant value to that process.
“Key challenges faced by our industry include the need to make production workflows faster and more seamless, increase productivity, cut costs and avoid errors,” Peire continues. “The need for standardization is stronger than ever in order to achieve these goals, and it is obvious from these results that people are no longer reluctant to integrate standards into their production processes.“

Customer Satisfaction Continues to Increase
Further, the survey indicates a very high customer satisfaction rate. On average across the entire product portfolio, just over 78% of all customers think Enfocus products are a good-to excellent value for the money. In particular the launch of Instant PDF 3, a PDF creation tool, has been perceived very well, with an 18% satisfaction level increase compared to the previous survey in 2003. Peire concludes: “With Instant PDF 3.6 now also InDesign CS2 compatible, Enfocus provides the easiest, most reliable way available for creative professionals to create flawless Certified PDF® files. In many cases this is the first step in a more and more automated process. We are happy to see that our customers appreciate the efforts we have put into making this product more reliable and easier to use - it inspires us to continue to implement this improved usability within our other products.”