Just over a decade ago the way we produce print was irrevocably altered. The offset world became enlightened by computer-to-plate (CTP) manufacturing, and among quick print and copy establishments, digital production printing revolutionized their business model.

The transition from analog to digital in the print process happened virtually overnight — at least for print suppliers. They had to make capital investments in new digital tools. For print buyers, content creators and retail customers, the learning curve has been significantly steeper. Suddenly, they weren’t being asked to submit camera-ready content; rather, they were being asked for digital files.

Commercial printers found it wasn’t as difficult to ask for digital files as it was — and is — for the quick print and copy business, which targets a less graphic arts-experienced customer base. They typical customer profile is small-to-mid-sized local businesses that may have as few as one or two people on staff. As you may expect, these customers are not likely to have taken Graphic Arts 101 before designing their first tri-fold promotional brochure.

The print provider has been the customer’s first line of defense against content problems sneaking through to output — a digital copier or digital production press. Now, there are good tools on the market to help suppliers alleviate those problems. They’re called preflighting or postflighting solutions, and they are software applications that analyze a digital file to ensure that it meets the specifications for its output intentions.

These quality assurance applications may be desktop tools, server-based or even highly automated, Web-enabled solutions. The desktop or scaled-down server-based iterations are often the most appropriate for the quick-print business. For example, Markzware has a flagship application, FlightCheck Professional, a desktop-level solution that will verify print specifications of any range of file formats — from native application files (Microsoft Publisher, Word, Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, QuarkXPress files, and so on) to any variety of PDF.

Tags: Adobe, FlightCheck, flightcheck pro, flightcheck professional, InDesign, Markzware, Markzware News, preflighting, Preflighting News, prepress, Prepress News, Quark, QuarkXPress, Workflow

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 2nd, 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.