Preflighting 101 - Part 4; Inspecting a Document & Job Packaging
Last week we covered a very important step that should be done before using FlightCheck Professional to preflight jobs which was about the Ground Controls in a post titled, “Preflighting 101 - Part 3; FLIGHTCHECK Professional v6 Concepts- a. Ground Controls”. Today we will move right along and cover the last three steps in the preflight process with FlightCheck; Inspecting a Document, Viewing the Results and Collect for Output (Packaging):
Preflighting 101 - Part 4
IIII b. Inspecting a Document
To begin preflighting one of the many document formats FlightCheck Professional supports is easy. You can either drag and drop it onto the FlightCheck application icon or open it from within FlightCheck via a standard “file->open” process. At this point, FlightCheck can report any potential problems with the file. During inspections, FlightCheck analyzes the document and measures what it finds against the Ground Controls that have been set and discussed earlier in this lesson.
Once preflight inspection is complete, FlightCheck will summarize its findings in the Results window. The items in the Result window are based on the Ground Controls used to inspect the document. Potential problems will be displayed in the categories that are activated in the Ground Controls (red= errors, blue- warnings). There is also additional help information given about the potential problems found in the document. This educational text includes items such as font manufacturer, image format, image resolution and ink colors as some examples.
III c. Viewing the Results
Once a document has been preflighted, FlightCheck displays what problems might prevent your document from outputting in three different areas: the Result window, the Main window and the Page Layout window. The Result window displays the different categories of potential problems and rules them as fine or as having a potential preflight problem. If a category has potential problems, it is placed in a list in the Results window along with brief details about the errors. Additional information about each potential problem can then be accessed by placing your mouse cursor over the item in question. This is a collection of detailed problems descriptions and possible solutions to the problems.
The Main window also reports potential problems within the document. The same categories of problems listed in the Result window are listed here. Each category has a button that when selected will display all information about the elements on that category. For example, when the Images category button is clicked, the Main window will display all images in the document along with detailed information about each image. This information includes color mode, file format, resolution, scaling and much more. If any one of these characteristics has a potential problem, it will be highlighted.
In addition to the Results and Main windows, FlightCheck also features a Page Layout window. This window displays a preview of the document along with a list of potential problems. From this window, FlightCheck can open the document in it’s native application such as QuarkXPress or Adobe InDesign- even a PDF in Acrobat and select individual problems automatically. For example, if there is a potential problem with a font used in a page layout document, FlightCheck can open the document and select the text that is using the font. The Page Layout window also allows you to open images that have been placed into a document. FlightCheck will search your workstation for applications that can open the image. You will then be allowed to select which application FLIGHTCHECK should use.
When a potential problem is corrected in another application, FlightCheck will alert you that the document has been changed and will prompt you to re-scan the document. This will ensure that the results you are viewing are accurate and current. In addition to correcting potential problems, you can also modify the Ground Controls to eliminate errors. For example, if the Ground Control for entered registration marks has been activated, FlightCheck will alert you if the document id using centered registration marks. If this is not a problem for your output environment, you can simply deactivate the Ground Control for centered registration marks to eliminate the error.
IIII d. Collect for Output (Packaging)
The last stage of preflighting with FlightCheck is collecting the job for output. This includes collecting all items that may be required when the document is output, including all fonts and images used. In addition, FlightCheck will include any Xtensions or Plug-in’s that may be required for output to PDF or plate, as well as application preferences and the Ground Controls that were used to preflight the document. Once the elements have been collected, you can have FlightCheck compress the file into a .zip archive for sending to the printer or next person in the workflow via FTP, email or on CD. This will save disk space and help keep files from being lost.
In addition to collecting all of the elements for the documents, FlightCheck will organize the elements in the output folder. You can tell FlightCheck to make a folder for all images and a folder for fonts. You can also create a single font suitcase to hold all of the screen fonts used in the document. It is important to note that when the compression option is used, you will not be able to organize the different elements into folders.
This packaging of the job with all elements is very handy- especially with the compression options.
FLIGHTCHECK Approved!
It is important to make mention of the fact that similar to a certified PDF, FlightCheck can place a watermark on the collected folder, giving it a mark of failed or approved. Naturally, we all want to be sending and/or receiving print-jobs that have the FlightCheck Approved eagle mark on them!
This is the end of the Preflighting 101 with FlightCheck Professional. The most important next step is to religiously perform this all important quality assurance task. Like Dr. Demming said, “Quality is everyone’s responsibility.”
Learn more about FlightCheck by watching these videos on MarkzwareTV!
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