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.

Even so, certain rules must be followed when designing direct mail pieces. First, four-color printing typically needs to be CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black), and the screen and printer fonts must be included on the disk when sent to a print vendor. Systematically checking your files before they are printed at your own facility is the best way to ensure error-free output. To follow the basic rules of print production, use software utility programs such as FlightCheck. Once you have created your layout using QuarkXPress, InDesign, Pagemaker, Microsoft Word, or just about any other programs, you can simply drag the file icon over the FlightCheck icon. The program then checks for a number of “trouble spots” in your fle. After files are checked, FlightCheck generates a report that alerts you (or your vendor) to any problems, then allows for corrections.

Since the majority of problems encountered by content creators revolve around fonts, FlightCheck lets you determine the types of fonts used. It also answers the most critical questions: Do I have the screen and printer fonts? Both are necessary to ensure that the text will image properly and flow correctly when printed. This holds true whether you print on your own devices or send the project to a print vendor.

Color is another major concern during content creation. FlightCheck, for example, determines if all of the images are Red-Green-Blue (RGB) or separated for four-color process printing. It also examines “color traps,” the areas where colors overlap or butt up against each other. Often, black is set in the page layout program to overlap, hiding any potential color gaps. Sometimes these gaps also appear in the frames around images.

[tag]Adobe, Content, FlightCheck, InDesign, Markzware, Microsoft, preflighting, prepress, QuarkXPress[/tag]

Tags: Adobe, Content, FlightCheck, InDesign, Markzware, Markzware News, Microsoft, preflighting, Preflighting News, prepress, Prepress News, QuarkXPress

This entry was posted on Friday, July 11th, 2008 at 6:00 am and is filed under Markzware FlightCheck, Markzware News, Markzware Preflight For Print. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.