If I am going to preflight, how do I do it? What criteria will I use, and where in the workflow should preflight occur? The answer: At every stage of the workflow. Native files should be verified before a document is converted to PDF. That file should subsequently be verified before it is sent to the supplier, and the supplier may want to verify it yet again before the file is imposed and plates are set.

The need for preflight quality assurance arose at the same time as digital technology became widespread enough to land in the hands of well-meaning customers who suddenly felt qualified to be graphic designers. In those early days, a printer would have to inspect each digital document, manually verifying the appropriateness of art file formats, the presence of all versions of all needed fonts defaulted or improperly kearned fonts, the proper color coding, and various other factors. If just one critical element were overlooked, it was back to the drawing board.

Pity the poor souls that buy flood insurance after their homes have flooded. “Better late than never” can be a costly philosophy. “Better safe than sorry” makes more sense, doesn’t it?

The same logic applies to today’s modernized printing industry. Going direct-to-plate with digital technology means that even the slightest error can be costly, in terms of both time and money. Time is money, after all. You can’t afford to lose any, and with a simple preflight quality control process, you don’t have to.

We work and live in confusing and complex times. This is especially true for those who are involved in graphic design, photography, illustration and the other dozen or so disciplines that make up the graphics world.

As we prepare digital files steps need to be taken to make sure missing fonts and images are included, fonts are with the files, colors are converted to CMYK, and trapping is correct. Preflighting all aspects of digital files before PDFs are created increases the chance of error-free output.

Your design goes off to the printer and comes back a week later as 10,000 high-quality, full-color brochures. Yes, your graphic design talents were needed, but so was the art of the PrePress Production Operator:

Multiple Intelligence lesson plan, #4

Color bar, Crop marks, Resgister marks, Tick or Fold marks, Legend- all some of the elements that help tie your design together into what will be a predictable output via PDF. And oh yes, they preflight, as should you! As designers, several of the “tips” that are given often regard having a better understanding of the prepress process and a good communication with the printer. See link below to article:

Even though the technologies enabling businesses to create documents have become more accessible, there remains a hidden cost in the generation of print and electronic media—a cost easily offset with some simple tools and best practices

Perhaps you’ve seen the commercials by print giants like Xerox and Hewlett-Packard, in which they espouse how cheap print has become? Indeed, the cost to generate color print these days is, in fact, much less expensive for businesses than it was just a few short years ago.

Your in-plant is slick. You’ve got the latest and greatest in print engines and a stealthy prepress workflow. But, what good is it when the front end of the process is replete with bad files — customer - supplied content that’s poorly prepared and requires time and expense to fix?

This is a problem many printing organizations — and in-plants, instant print shops, large-format print suppliers and general commercial printing companies — face today. Content coming into many printing plants just isn’t good.

The biggest complaint from print vendors is “missing pieces,” such as missing fonts or images not linked to a file. After ensuring a file has the greatest integrity (meaning it will print with no graphics errors), FlightCheck assembles all elements used to combine the document into one folder. Not only are all images collected, so are the screen and printer fonts, ensuring that all digital pieces link together to recreate the digital file at the print facility. If you print your own mailers or fliers, this is helpful in organizing content. If you outsource to a printing vendor, this function also ensures that no time is wasted searching for missing elements.

A few years ago, printed pieces were created using strips of text that were pasted on art boards. These strips of paper were bound to the board with wax or rubber cement. Known as “cold type,” it wasn’t until the early ’90s that most organizations began to rely on page layout programs. Today, the freedom computer programs allow is as varied as your imagination.

“A revolution is waging in the design and publishing industries. Workflow responsibilities are shifting and graphic artists are wearing many more hats than a decade ago,” says Mary Gay Marchese, public relations director for Markzware, a Santa Ana-based company that provides a wide range of preflighting solutions.

“With the advent of CTP and an increasing demand to re-purpose content electronically to CDs or the web, for example, creative professionals find that they can no longer realistically focus on just design. Increasingly, they are being asked to take on additional technical challenges that once were the domain of the prepress group, like preflighting and preparing final content files for distribution to electronic media or print.