IDEAlliance recently announced the release of first XML version of PROSE, the Production Order Specification/EDI. PROSE XML 1.0 is said to allow "complete standardization of all production and distribution orders for printers and print buyers, ensuring unprecedented reliability and accuracy of printing instructions. Implementation of PROSE XML 1.0 is designed to increase productivity and performance levels and significantly reduce support cost. Initially released in 1992, the first PROSE was developed by the IDEAlliance EMBARC-EDI Committee out of a need to keep pace with the growing complexity of printed products. PROSE provides print buyers with a format for electronic transmission of instructions for printing and binding services to their printers. PROSE XML 1.0 also provides legacy support for the original PROSE, meaning that any orders previously created in PROSE can be updated into the XML format. PROSE XML orders can be easily transformed into the original PROSE EDI specification, allowing for compatibility with legacy PROSE-based systems."

From the web site description: "The primary authors of the XML revisions to PROSE were Frank Montague of R.R.Donnelley & Sons, and Jeff Parnau of the Impoze division of Quad/Graphics. Frank and Jeff were two of the three original members of the original GCA PROSE Best Practices Committee. The most significant two features of PROSE-XML are: (1) Table names are embedded to allow for easy identification at to where an element belongs; (2) Pointers are embedded to allow for simple transportability between PROSE-XML and legacy RDB environments. In order to demonstrate the flexibility and robustness of PROSE-XML, we offer on this site several versions of the same data: A sample, complex XML file, the same information in PROSE, the information in a sorted PROSE file, and the information in a Microsoft Access (32 bit) database. We also include here the proposed DTD and a supporting Excel spreadsheet explaining the usage and meaning of the fields..."

From the announcement 2001-11-01:

"PROSE XML is broadening the utilization of print production standards," says David Steinhardt, President and CEO of IDEAlliance. "PROSE has gained acceptance from a wide array of printers and publishers, including some of the most prominent companies in the publishing and printing arena."

"The IDEAlliance EDI Committee originally designed PROSE to allow the print buyer to define and build a structure or hierarchy for a publication, catalog, or marketing piece," says Bill Orndorff, Vice President of Materials Management, Perry Judd's, Inc. and chair of the IDEAlliance B2B Paper Committee. "By evolving into XML, this process is now much more standardized and interchangeable, and lets the print buyer specify the amount of control over the production process. The customer can define the precise content or order of specific forms, pages, and signatures, or leave those details up to the printer."

IDEAlliance (International Digital Enterprise Alliance) is a not-for-profit membership organization. Its mission is to advance user-driven, cross-industry solutions for all publishing and content-related processes by developing standards, fostering business alliances, and identifying best practices. IDEAlliance has been a leader in information technology since 1966 (founded as Graphic Communications Association) having fostered the development and adoption of standards such as ADIS, GRACoL, ICE, JIFFI, Mail.dat, papiNet, PRISM, PROSE XML, SPACE XML, SGML, and XML.