Is it Grackle or GRACoL?

Written by:
Fred Ramsey
Worldwide Marketing Product Manager
Xerox Corporation
This week the Xerox 700i/770 was certified by the IDEAlliance certified to GRACoL – General Requirements for Applications in Commercial Offset Lithography.
I have always found some irony in the fact that one of our premier press certifications is pronounced the same as a black bird, the “grackle.”  (This is the same grackle that is eating in my wife’s garden). The GRACoL standard and my grackle friends share some traits—Yes, both are predictable, repetitive and both are durable—I suppose we need birds.  Certainly this is where the similarity ends!
The GRACoL certification provides an assurance in the areas of Accuracy, Uniformity, Repeatability, Durability, and Registration.  This certification is great news for people that know color management—And, even if you are not a color “guru”, the value is predictability in your production—You can be assured of hitting a repeatable sellable prints and this is good for anyone’s bottom-line.
In other words, this helps answer the question, “How do I get sellable, quality prints in a repeatable manner?” There are a set of steps.
While I can do without grackles in my daily life. Does GRACoL or another such standard add to your list of customers?