With the Enfocus PitStop Connect launch at the IPEX printing show in Birmingham, England, this Printweek UK review is even more interesting. The review begins with some observant views on preflighting in print media:
“Getting a PDF right first time is a notoriously tricky issue for the creative sector. Invariably, files that are sent to the printer fail preflighting scrutiny, thanks to any one of a number of problems: low-resolution images, fonts not embedded, an RGB image, difficulties with spot colors – the list is virtually endless.”
Source: PrintWeek (April 2010)
What was extremely fair of PrintWeek and the author, was to ask for thoughts from Markzware. After all, Markzware has had online preflighting, in the form of FlightCheck Online on the market for years; yet we opted to remove this item from our Products page. Why? Well, they summed it up nicely with:
“FlightCheck Professional is a pre-flight tool for the likes of Adobe InDesign and QuarkXPress. This product has the ability to export simple pre-flight settings, or ground controls, to customers in the supply chain. David Dilling, managing director at Markzware’s (European office), says that this is a good option for smaller print shops. Markzware did sell a more direct competitor to PitStop Connector, FlightCheck Online. However, this product was discontinued two years ago. “We stopped this because the market is far from standardised,” says Dilling. “So far, PDF has not quite lived up to its promise and the reality is that whenever a file is sent to a printer, they will have to deal with any changes. You really need to pre-flight files throughout the workflow.“
Source: Related Products, bottom of PrintWeek article (April 2010)
The benefits of preflighting with FlightCheck Professional on each and every graphic or layout machine can be quickly visualized in this chart and post titled, “Print Quality – the Quality triangle for Designers, Layout Artists, Prepress Operators and Publishers alike“. You can buy FlightCheck preflight software today for only 399 for a single license and even better deals on 5, 10-pack and variable site licenses…
Enfocus’s PitStop Connect sounds interesting, as was FlightCheck Online. The problem, in my personal opinion, is that Enfocus is advocating a postflight check only and not educating the market on how to properly preflight page layout and native files before the cement is set and the PDF is made. The ink-on-paper world has tried this PDF-only approach and it has largely not worked for the average printing house. Yes, commercial printers have had great success with PDF. That makes total sense to place high demands on large publishers and advertising studios who negotiate hard with their print contractors. Yet once again, the survey shows that PDF preflight alone will not lead to better document output. Use FlightCheck Professional.
FlightCheck Professional Preflight Quality
