Chili Publish and Esko have agreed a partnership that will see Chili Publish's online editing technology incorporated into Esko's WebCenter packaging platform. The integrated solution will be demonstrated publicly for the first time at Graph Expo 2012 in Chicago, USA, between October 7th and 10th.

Esko WebCenter will feature a new Adobe Illustrator plug-in which will allow designers to publish Illustrator documents directly to a WebCenter project. Brand owners will then be able to add content like barcodes and nutrition information to the design by editing the document using Chili Editor in the WebCenter browser window.

The integration of Chili Publish's and Esko's solutions reflects a growing trend in packaging design and production, the companies say

"We’ve been seeing huge user interest in online document editing, as well as packaging functionality," explains Kevin Goeminne, chief financial officer and managing partner, Chili Publish. "Partnering with Esko, the technology leader in this domain, is a logical and important strategic step that helps us launch our technology into a new market."

Bjorn Willems, product manager for Interactive Applications at Esko, adds: "This [platform] further complements our portfolio of WebCenter applications that manage the approval, collaboration, project management and planning for the packaging life cycle."

The solution will be commercially available by the end of 2012