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.
One nice thing about flying in small countries is that you often get a close-up view on many of the procedures. Heading back from Caye Caulker to Belizé City on a 10-minute Tropic Air flight was a real treat both in terms of seeing the preflight and flight routines and in not having to take the cramped, long-lasting ferry boat back. See picture gallery of this flight here.
Naturally, this just re-enforces the need for quality control checks throughout the workflow- both in aviation as well as print-media. Preflight, Postflight and all sorts of other flights are certainly a must for top-notch PDF’s or print-jobs. Design to land safely- create to print properly!
Should we really care about emerging technologies when the economy remains in such flux that most of us are happy just to keep our heads above the rising waters, let alone invest in technologies to come?
But that doom-and-gloom mentality may be precisely what’s wrong with the allied industries today. Many printers and publishers have gone into virtual hibernation — content to statically ride out the storm — but the problem is that the industries around them continue to change.
People at Markzware work hard, but naturally they also like their free time. Hence we have added a new category to this blog called, “Markzware Adventures!”
Here we see some of the Markzwarians enjoying a little snorkeling with sharks, rays, turtles and vast numbers of tropical fish in Belizé! This small Central American country is a member of the British Commonwealth and the official language is English, believe it or not! It also lies within the Caribbean Sea and has the world’s second largest barrier reef, which makes for lovely island life and of course great diving and snorkeling. Heck, as you will see in the movie below, as soon as the camera goes underwater, you see a large Grouper fish! Enjoy the film…
Despite all the gains and benefits of computer-to-plate (CTP) imaging and digital design, the process of creating compelling packaging designs is actually more complicated than ever. In the days of film, it didn’t matter what creative application you may have been using — Adobe Illustrator or QuarkXPress, for example — because in the end the creative work became film, which any packaging manufacturer could accept.
Then came CTP, and film stepped aside and allowed digital workflow to take center stage. No longer was film trafficked; rather, digital files became the means for exchanging packaging content. And suddenly, it became increasingly important what design application a creative director may be using, and what types of digital file formats a package printer may (or may not) accept.
Doug Rosen, product manager for Markzware recently made a nice little product overview movie for our tools which specifically work with QuarkXPress. You can watch the neat little movie, made in Apple KeyNote and finalized in iMovie here:
These products include;
ID2Q or InDesign to QuarkXPress conversion MarkzTools, which fixes bad or corrupted Quark Projects
and FlightCheck Professional- your preflight tool for checking some 50 file formats such as QuarkXPress, Adobe InDesign, Illustrator and PDF to name a few!
DesktopMedia would like to thank Markzware, the leading software developer in preflight and file utilities for creative workflows for their generous donation of FlightCheck Professional, FlightCheck Designer and Q2ID to the DesktopMedia training lab. Not only will we put this to good use exposing and teaching as many professionals as possible, but, in the coming months we’ll be writing about how this powerful tool can help your organization!
Preflight and Conversion Tools For Document Content - MARKZWARE
Check out Markzware for all their latest offerings. Remember, the earlier in the your workflow you can include quality control the greater the success rate of your production files! Flightcheck Professional can review more file formats than you think — InDesign CS3, Quark 7, PDFs, even Microsoft Office files!!!
Indeed there’s no shortage of workflow tools used to create, color correct, optimize, verify and exchange content bound for print. The print industry certainly isn’t lacking in technology to support the all-digital workflow. But what may still be missing is a commitment to better educate the customer - teaching them how and why they need to create “good files” for print — and a willing shift in responsibility.
I am saddened by todays news of David Watsons death.
David was a visionary and a gentleman. He always made it a point to visit me at all the GraphExpo and other tradeshows to share a word or two with me.
I have known David personally since 1996. He was a typesetter from the old days. We both shared an affinity with each other as I was a typesetter and we could relate to each other.
Not too long ago, shortly before drupa he gave me another one of those [out of the blue] phone calls. It was to invite Markzware to demonstrate our wares at the Hewlett-Packard booth.
