Magazines Canada has revised its digital Magazine Advertising Specifications (dMACs) to reflect technical changes in magazine printing, as well as changes to standards in the U.S.

As magazine production technology continues to evolve, advertisers, publishers and printers need to be able to speak the same language, says Gary Garland, executive director of advertising services for Magazines Canada. And because Canadian and American companies are often linked on the production side, Garland added, it’s important to keep Canadian standards in line with American ones, which are set by an organization called IDEAlliance SWOP (Specifications Web Offest Publications).

The dMac Specification changes are as follows:

The new dMAC Specification V5.0 makes provisions for two printing conditions: a Coated Grade No. 3 stock in addition to a Coated Grade No. 5 stock. For each printing condition there exist: (i) a characterization data set consisting of measurements from printed IT8.7/4 targets, (ii) an ICC profile made from the dataset and (iii) a colour control bar with target values for Grades No. 3 and No. 5 printing.

Magazines Canada has also released a new white paper the benefits of soft proofing for magazine publishers, which can be downloaded here.