Preflight Illustrator, InDesign and QuarkXPress with FlightCheck

Preflight Illustrator, InDesign,
QuarkXPress and More Files with
FlightCheck Stand-Alone Preflight Software

Preflight Illustrator, Adobe InDesign and QuarkXPress with Markzware FlightCheck preflighting application to check documents for quality control before output. FlightCheck scans files to preflight Illustrator, InDesign and QuarkXPress to find printing errors before they are printed.

Using FlightCheck to preflight Illustrator, InDesign or other file formats saves time, money and re-printing, plus gives peace of mind, while ensuring all required files are included for printing. After investing in document creation, you want to preflight Illustrator or InDesign with a preflighting application that you can trust, and FlightCheck has patented preflight technology, as well as customizable preflighting Ground Controls.

FlightCheck video on how to preflight Illustrator files: Hi everybody, David Dilling here from Markzware. Some of you may have noticed a new release on the Markzware web page. You may have seen mentions on Twitter or in the larger publishing and print industry press about the Markzware release of FLIGHTCHECK for Macintosh. Preflight users who want to package Illustrator files, this is for you! There are two very important features I would like to tell you about in more detail.

FlightCheck and Adobe Illustrator Files –
The first FlightCheck item I want to highlight is its improved handling of many of the DTP layout file application formats we support. In particular, Adobe Illustrator or Illustrator file. Now of course we check InDesign and QuarkXPress, and we will get to that in a moment, and PDF and Photoshop and EPS and TIFF; you can pretty much name it.

Illustrator preflight has really improved with FlightCheck, which has long been able to preflight and package Adobe Illustrator files. FlightCheck allows you to drop any file onto the app, like an EPS or a PDF. I can drop an InDesign layout or, in this case, I can drop the native Illustrator file, right on the FlightCheck icon here in my dock and it gets to work for me. FlightCheck is that easy to use. Whether an Illustrator file or another CS5, CS4 or lower type of graphic arts file, FlightCheck will do the job!

(FlightCheck eagle screeches as .ai or Illustrator job is completed in this sessions preflight scan.)

There, we just saw FlightCheck preflight check an Illustrator file and we get a FlightCheck Results Page with the preflight overview. We will have a new video demonstration of all features and functions of FlightCheck later on. In any event, you see how FlightCheck checks the Illustrator file and you get details of that print file, the colors, fonts and used images. Here we see an EPS file and we get all of the preflight details of that image. So, FlightCheck is the only application, stand-alone, that will preflight Adobe Illustrator files.

Preflight is not built into Creative Suite 5, or CS4 or any of that. What we can also do with FlightCheck here is PACKAGE or as we call it, “Collect the job.” So now, FlightCheck will COLLECT your Adobe Illustrator file with all of the fonts and images used or placed within the .ai file and even your font suitcases, a preflight report, basically everything you need. Furthermore, FlightCheck even compresses the packaged job, which is quite handy.

Now we select “Collect” (within FlightCheck) and that collecting process starts. And we get that FlightCheck sound that it is successfully completed. So, that is a main new feature of FlightCheck, the improved handling of Illustrator files. Of course, you can set up your checks within FlightCheck or your Ground Controls, which we will go over in more detail another time (see other videos on setting up FlightCheck Ground Controls here.) The last thing I want to show you in the new FlightCheck is its ability to… let’s go back to the FlightCheck press release here.

FlightCheck will treat each Quark layout as a separate document, so, a new Quark document. So, a new FlightCheck Overview window will appear for each Quark layout used within the DTP file. A single Results Window will show all of the preflight data. So let’s see how that works in FlightCheck in practice.

We saw what it means for Illustrator and how FlightCheck can check almost any DTP document, InDesign, Quark, EPS, PDF, now let’s see how it handles the new Multi-Layouts in QuarkXPress 8. We will take this Quark 9 document and drop it up on the FlightStrip within FlightCheck, which is another way to start the checking of the file; there are many ways to check your DTP files with FlightCheck. (FlightCheck eagle screeches after preflight check is complete.)

Like PR said, we will see the one FlightCheck Results screen with all the information. So, we can see where exactly those preflight problems are, very quickly, once again in the Results Window. And like I said, you will see two FlightCheck Overview Windows. So, here we see in this Overview Window, the Quark layout with this name… and here, we see in the other Overview Window opened in FlightCheck, the other Quark 9 layout.

As normal, we get all of the preflight details of the Quark file and now we can see this, per used layout, used within the Quark 9 file. So, in QuarkXPress 8 or 9, you can have multiple layouts in any given document. That is, thus, a handy new feature. And of course, also, just like the Illustrator file or with InDesign files, we can also COLLECT the QuarkXPress job with all fonts and images that are used within that DTP file, even compressing the print job. So, very handy indeed.

So, that was FlightCheck. Do not forget to try it out. I’ll first show you by cruising over to our FlightCheck product page on Markzware.com, under “Products.” You will also be able to see a video demonstration of FlightCheck. You can of course also buy now but you can also of course download and try the 30-day free trial version of FlightCheck, which will once again preflight numerous file types.

Just like at an airport, the people from TSA or people checking the passengers coming in and the bags; they are using x-rays. They are going to check as often and as thoroughly as they can, of course, in that case, for safety. Well, the same thing applies for quality assurance. You have to check and it also has to be done on a regular basis.

FlightCheck is that X-Ray to help you quickly and easily preflight; QuarkXPress, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Acrobat, PDFs, EPS, TIFFs, pretty much you name it. Download today and try out the free FlightCheck trial version and see for yourself why Markzware FlightCheck is the predominate preflight application on the market today as a stand alone Mac app.

One other thing I did want to show is that there is a lot on the FlightCheck web page to check out, to gain insight into why a FlightCheck purchase is such a logical decision. It is a very affordable product that will just help you improve your bottom-line or ROI, left-right-and-center, really.

For those that already have FlightCheck v6.5 or v6.75, the Update is free. The upgrade for those on lower versions, and there are many of you still on FlightCheck v4 and v5, you can upgrade for only 99 USD/EUR via the Upgrade button down here on the product page. A new copy of FlightCheck, for the record, costs 399 Euros or USD and is well worth its weight in gold. In any event, for those that already have FlightCheck v6.5, you can update under the Support Section on our web page on www.markzware.com and then go to, “Product Updaters and Installer Files.”

If you click there, you will get a list of all of our products, and the various updaters available for those applications, Adobe InDesign plugins and XTensions. These will also act as the full installer for Markzware products. If I click on FlightCheck, I will get a new browser window, where I can then go in and download the latest version of FlightCheck, and get that for use within our workflow, our graphics machine or our preflight department.

That is Markzware’s FlightCheck, thank you very much. This is David Dilling, signing off.

“Quality is never an accident… it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives.”
Will Foster

End Transcription
Preflight Illustrator with Markzware FlightCheck during the Illustrator prepress workflow.

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