Perfecting the Digital Workflow
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.
So, why do we have this pervasive, industry-wide gap in the workflow, now, more than a decade after CTP and digital workflow invaded the print marketplace? Perhaps a look back on “digital evolution” will shed some light.
Printing organizations led their customers into digital workflows, starting with the early adoption of CTP and digital prepress technologies. Print providers made good and sure that they were ready and able to process digital files before they asked for them from their customers.
Once they started requesting (if not requiring) digital content, many print providers quickly found out how difficult it was to get. For the most part, large commercial and publication printing companies had it good because often they were dealing with content delivered from ad agencies, publishing companies and other prepress suppliers. This demographic was far better equipped to supply content in a suitable form. The digital files were prepared by professional graphic folks who had some appreciation for the print process.
Still, over a decade later. prepress workers at most commercial printing companies will tell you they continue to be plagued by bad files coming into their plants.
The matter is further complicated for an in-plant, which frequently doesn’t have the luxury of receiving content from clients who have extensive graphic arts training.
Getting content right — from the start
Bob Damon, now a retired prepress instructor from Fox Valley Technical College in Appleton, WI, sympathizes with print producers. He understands how frustrating it is to have a digital workflow stalled by problems that originate at the time the file was created. He suggests, “Evidence of the importance of good digital file preparation can be seen with any job entering the production workflow. Problems with fonts, wrong graphic file formats, incorrect color modes, missing elements, embedded font and graphic issues, are compounded by poor techniques and bad file management.”
Fox Valley Technical College offers a one-year vocational diploma and a two-year Associate degree in offset printing or flexography. Damon explains, “The Printing & Publishing program has two concentrations: prepress and press. Students with prepress concentrations will spend 75 percent of their coursework in classes involving file building and workflow.”
Industry-wide, problems with digital print workflow are frequent, unfortunate and costly — but, thankfully, easily resolved. These are the principles Damon reinforced with his students.
“On average, three-quarters of the students entering the Printing & Publishing program do so with no prior printing knowledge or experience,” Damon says.
“Many graphic arts programs are more focused on aesthetics and than mechanics,” he adds. “I often found students entering our program had some inner drive to design but little interest in conforming to the mechanics and limitations of the reproduction process. For some, it was too ‘confining’ to design to meet a customer’s specifications or to design with the printing and finishing requirements and limitations in mind.”
In-plant workflow breakdowns
Workflow breakdowns in an in-plant might not be the result of this ‘diva’ mentality. Rather, the in-plant might find it difficult to standardize its workflow when each department within the corporation has unique printing requests and varying methods for creating and supplying digital content.
These challenges are not insurmountable, according to Damon, who suggests the remedy lies in communication and quality control. He says, “You must establish and nurture the relationship between printer and client. Develop a two-way line of communication where specifications, problems and workflow solutions can be discussed — and for the mutual benefit of all parties. Communication is key.”
A good place to start is by setting basic specifications for digital content coming into the in-plant. Then, those specs should be explained to those submitting files. This doesn’t mean that everyone submitting a job to the in-plant has to become a print expert in their own right. But, these clients need to value the fundamental reason of why it is critical their files be complete to print appropriately.
They’re also like to gain from exposure to the available software tools that will assist the in creating and verifying their digital content.
“Preflighting is essential,” Damon says. “As the words from an old Midas commercial went, ‘You can pay me now, or you pay me later.’ The sooner problems can be flagged and dealt with, the cheaper the print job.
Ideally, preflight is the responsibility of both the content creator, that is, the client, and the printer,” he adds. “Digital tools, such as Markzware’s FlightCheck can be used to assist in proper file creation.” By establishing parameters, or specifications, for the file upfront, the user an be alerted when an error occurs. For example, if the document is bound for four-color print output, it will notify the user if he or she mistakingly places and RGB graphic. This solution is designed to ensure digital file problems are caught as early in the workflow as possible.
Virtually all prepress and printing systems are PDF-compliant, and PDFs are accessible to content creators, as well. Damon forewarns, however, that PDF is not a “cure-all” for digital workflow woes. Like any digital file format, junk into a PDF means junk out.
Tags: Adobe InDesign, Conversion News, FlightCheck, graphic design, Markzware, Markzware News, PDF, preflighting, Preflighting News, prepress, Prepress News, print production, printers, Quality_assurance, Quark