Group of Prepress, Print & Color Management Professionals has a great discussion on Linkedin, started by Cindy (Bailey) Wingo, where she asked:
“What are the industry standards for producing clean, RIPpable files?” … “What is the industry standard for excellence in pre-flighting files?“
Source: Group of Prepress, Print & Color Management Professionals
PDF compatible preflighting early in the workflow to improve ROI
Markzware, publisher of FlightCheck, preflight solution for PDF and non-PDF file formats, participated in the discussion and noted the great replies. The last post summarizes what quality-minded graphic design and publishing users consider in the overall print workflow for document output:
“Preflighting should happen even
before the PDF is even created.
Bad files make bad PDFs.
That’s why programs such as
FlightCheck are so invaluable.”
Source: David Creamer via the
Group of Prepress, Print & Color Management Professionals
This response to postflight options for later stage PDFs is true as a step right before the RIP, but you should actually preflight FIRST before making a PDF print file. Encouraging facts were offered by industry expert (I.D.E.A.S Training) and certified Adobe and Quark trainer, David Creamer and our own Mary Gay Marchese, as this is the way to make a publishing and print workflow truly flow.
David started by sharing how to properly prepare desktop publishing (DTP) layouts for print. There is a great educational piece for graphic designers and publishers about trouble-free output.
FlightCheck thoroughly preflights both PDF and non-PDF file formats. Knowing the benefits of preflighting early in the workflow, Mary Gay gave a tip to those pushing only postflight (done after the PDF is made). She pointed out that they could be in for major workflow problems without preflighting first:
“FlightCheck or even preflight generally speaking is all about catching problems before sending that native file to the printer with fonts and images or outputting to PDF or otherwise directly printing that file.“
The importance of preflighting mentioned is worth repeating:
“Preflighting should happen even before the PDF is even created. Bad files make bad PDFs. That’s why programs such as FlightCheck are so invaluable.“
Preflighting is both an art and a science. Check and check often for your quality control to pay off in excellent, top-notch output; whether it is to PDF, or is a packaged native job with all fonts and images to the printer, make sure you preflight.
FlightCheck preflight solution can collect or package all used fonts and images. It can even compress them, for easy delivery to the next group in graphic design prepress for the print workflow.
Markzware’s stand-alone preflight application, can check native or source files like Adobe CS5, Illustrator and QuarkXPress, as well as postflight processed files, such as EPS and PDFs. You can buy this pre press software via the FlightCheck page. More printing solutions are available on the Markzware Products page.
“Bad files make bad PDFs. That’s why programs such as FlightCheck are so invaluable.” David Creamer
