About PTPGE

The Periodic Table of Print & Graphic Elements — a name borrowed from Mendeleev, because a complex domain becomes readable when its building blocks are arranged by family.

What it is

An open specification for describing a printed product before the job ticket: the words (a vocabulary of 750 terms and 56 product templates with permanent URIs, in 12 languages) and the identity (a fingerprint any system computes the same way). Published under CC BY 4.0; free to implement by anyone.

Why

Print is custom manufacturing. A brochure is not a SKU; it is a configuration — and every printer, platform and buyer has described it in its own words. When agents start buying print, the words have to mean the same thing everywhere, or nothing can be compared. PTPGE is that common meaning, and the identity that follows from it.

Where it comes from

The table began as one person's work: Patrik Knutsson, from a career in print and software, built the vocabulary and invented the identity method (Technical Note No. 1, DOI 10.5281/zenodo.21451592). Tangerin AS operates ptpge.org today. The first implementation is GutenLex; the pilot printer is Trykkverk.

Who holds it

PTPGE, a non-profit association being formed in Oslo, to hold the specification, the ptpge.* domains and the mark — so that no single company owns it. The specification is offered to the industry's own bodies for adoption; see Governance.

People

Patrik Knutsson, founder · Torben Pedersen, co-founder · Geir Tandberg Steigan, co-founder.

Writing about PTPGE

Boilerplate, facts, documents and the mark — on one page: Press & resources. The PDFs themselves, each at a stable address: Documents.

Contact

post@ptpge.org · Oslo, Norway.