Over at the Markzware’s Group on Linkedin.com, the popular professional social networking site, we posted an interesting topic and question- please join in!

How do you use preflighting in your workflow?

Here is a video interview of a graphic designer and for a large part he goes over how he preflights and the tools he uses (FlightCheck, PitStop, etc):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDcH8HXZhS4

How do you preflight in your workflow and why?

You can answer in the comments below, but please also join our Linkedin network and answer there as well…
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=70725&trk=hb_side_g

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

The need for preflight quality assurance arose at the same time as digital technology became widespread enough to land in the hands of well-meaning customers who suddenly felt qualified to be graphic designers. In those early days, a printer would have to inspect each digital document, manually verifying the appropriateness of art file formats, the presence of all versions of all needed fonts defaulted or improperly kearned fonts, the proper color coding, and various other factors. If just one critical element were overlooked, it was back to the drawing board.

Pity the poor souls that buy flood insurance after their homes have flooded. “Better late than never” can be a costly philosophy. “Better safe than sorry” makes more sense, doesn’t it?

The same logic applies to today’s modernized printing industry. Going direct-to-plate with digital technology means that even the slightest error can be costly, in terms of both time and money. Time is money, after all. You can’t afford to lose any, and with a simple preflight quality control process, you don’t have to.

We work and live in confusing and complex times. This is especially true for those who are involved in graphic design, photography, illustration and the other dozen or so disciplines that make up the graphics world.

As we prepare digital files steps need to be taken to make sure missing fonts and images are included, fonts are with the files, colors are converted to CMYK, and trapping is correct. Preflighting all aspects of digital files before PDFs are created increases the chance of error-free output.

Last week we went over “Preflighting 101 - Part 2; Common Issues- images“. Today we will delve into another very important and often over-looked area of document quality control- that of the layout itself.

II d. Layout Problems

There is an interesting article titled, “When do you need to preflight; the ROI discussion” which has some excellent points about preflighting. for instance, they say;

“The need for preflighting depends on the workflow and the job type. Magazine publishers will want to preflight early in the publishing process because they have no idea where the layout files they receive (adverts, classifieds, etc., for example) come from, and what the skill level of the layout designer of the file was.

In Preflighting 101 - Part 1; Preflight Overview we went over the basics of what preflighting is for designers, publishers and printers. Today we will get into what some of the problems or common issues are, starting in the fonts area.

II Common Preflight Problems

Preflight Overview

I a. What is Preflighting?

Preflighting is the process of checking digital files for potential problems prior to output (Exporting to PDF or Printing). This can also be a process best done on native or source file types, such as Adobe InDesign, Illustrator or QuarkXpress, everytime before saving or sending the job onto another party- simple quality assurance. Special software such as FlightCheck Professional from Markzware or PitStop from Enfocus can be used, or the process can be done manually, often called the eye-ball method.