Adobe Announces PDF Print Engine

"The Adobe PDF Print Engine allows PDF files to be rendered natively, using the same technology as Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Creative Suite software, to ensure that complex designs and effects, including transparencies, are reproduced quickly and reliably.

By rendering PDF content natively, at its highest level of abstraction, and by relying on JDF to capture job ticket and process control information, the print workflows powered by the Adobe PDF Print Engine enable designers and print production professionals to keep PDF content device independent throughout the workflow. This allows designers and printers to more easily make late-stage edits in PDF files and to configure PDF jobs to print on different types of output devices and presses."

Watch the demo on this page. It does a good job at explaining how the this new suite is really about the combination of "Native PDF" plus "Pervasive JDF (Job Definition Format) control". Which basically means a PDF file that can be easily modified last minute, is coupled with JDF data which holds all of the desired process information: associated with that file such as target paper spec, exact printer type, resolution, colors etc.