Make a PDF with top print quality by preflighting with Markzware FlightCheck:
Content abounds at small and large organizations alike. The challenge for businesses is to reproduce information in the most efficient and cost-effective manner possible. FlightCheck, the standard software for preflighting from Markzware, helps to meet this challenge.
Never before has the world of graphic arts been so dynamic, so ripe with change and new opportunities afforded by emerging creative technologies. And no longer are the creations made in popular desktop programs – such as QuarkXPress, Adobe InDesign or Microsoft Word – bound to the traditional constraints of print. These days, businesses create data for any number of purposes, and preflighting for PDF and non-PDF prepress workflows is important to ensure print quality.
Even small-to-mid sized companies generate a significant amount of “content” for dissemination in one form of media or another – brochures, marketing materials, advertisements, educational and training materials, presentations, web copy, and so forth. And no matter the output intention – whether the information will be printed and distributed, or used in some electronic fashion (the Web, an Intranet, a DVD/CD-ROM, email newsletter, etc.) – it’s up to the content creator to ensure that it reproduces with integrity. While the “new media” enables businesses greater opportunity for exposure and reach, it’s prompted those creating content to adapt and learn new skill sets.
Preflighting for PDF with Markzware FlightCheck for Print Quality Control
FlightCheck – Preflighting PDF, non-PDF and many more file formats
David Creamer, owner of I.D.E.A.S. Training, Bonsall, CA, says that there is a greater burden on companies to stay on top of the rapidly evolving world of graphics arts and electronic media. Take a simple concept like the Adobe Portable Document Format, for example. While most professionals are fairly familiar with this universally-embraced way to share data, this type of creation is quite complicated. Depending on where and how the information is being disseminated, the PDF file must contain certain attributes to drive output. A file in Portable Document Format that’s being posted on a Web site is very different from one that’s intended to be printed, for example. FlightCheck can handle preflighting for this format and many other types.
Similar to a Microsoft Word or QuarkXPress file, Creamer asserts, “PDF is just a format. It can eliminate the problem of missing graphics or fonts, but there is still the issue of garbage in, garbage out.”
That’s why a content creator’s continuing education is so critical these days. “I’m not talking about how to design, but how to create file properly – when to use a spot-color guide, when to use a process-color guide, how much resolution is necessary, how to eliminate transparency issues, how to make PDFs, and so forth,” Creamer stresses. FlightCheck can be used for preflighting all of these items.
“Everyone can make a PDF file on the computer simply by selecting the print-to-PDF option. It does not mean that it is a production-quality PDF,” Stephen Shinnick agrees. In his role as vice president of sales for All Systems Integration, an international graphic arts and printing integration firm, Shinnick consults with companies across the globe, and suggests and implements technologies that help his clients create, manage and distribute data is the most effective and cost-efficient way.
Fortunately, content creators don’t have to be formally trained graphic artists to prepare good files, Shinnick suggests. There are very low-cost software solutions – commonly referred to as ‘preflight’ tools, such as FlightCheck for preflighting – to help ensure content is rendered precisely the way you expect.
A preflight tool like FlightCheck by Markzware will adjudicate a digital file – PDFs, standardized forms of PDFs, native application files from popular desktop publishing (DTP) applications, you name it – and verify that the output specifications are made. For example, a print project should contain only graphics and illustrations that are high-resolution (300 to 600 dpi) and made up of the blend of the four colors used by printing technologies.
That same project, should it be distributed via the Web, must adhere to very different parameters. Graphics are better rendered in low-resolution (72 to 150 dpi) and should be RGB (a blend of red, green and blue, the color space most electronic displays accommodate). FlightCheck is ideal for preflighting colors and many other details.
Color space and resolution are but two possible pitfalls a preflight solution will detect. An application such as Markzware FlightCheck will check a document for hundreds of potential output errors, plus save the average business thousands of dollars and countless hours spent fixing file inadequacies or reprinting flawed materials. Check out the FlightCheck page today. Try this thorough preflight solution when you make a PDF or any of the many file types that FlightCheck can preflight!
PDF File Preflighting Content to Make a PDF of Print Quality with FlightCheck
