Check digital files and check print content, by using preflight software, FlightCheck:
Digital printing technologies that enable businesses to create documents have become more accessible. There, however, remains a hidden cost in the generation of print and electronic media. This cost can be offset with some simple tools and best practices, like preflighting.
Perhaps you’ve seen commercials by print giants like Xerox and Hewlett-Packard, in which they espouse how cheap print has become. Indeed, the expense to generate color print these days can be less expensive for businesses than it was just a few short years ago. While printers become more accessible to companies on a budget, there remains an unnecessary cost in print output and electronic publishing: the expense of ill-prepared content.
Preflight software, like FlightCheck by Markzware, can check content for possible printing errors to save time, money, materials and labor costs. FlightCheck is the patented preflight software that scans documents in various file types to catch printing errors before it’s too late.
Print Content Preflight Software – Check Digital Files with FlightCheck
Markzware’s preflight solution can check digital files and print content for printing quality.
The origin of content
The amount of content generated by businesses these days is mind-blowing! It’s disseminated in any number of ways — in print products such as brochures, marketing and sales collateral, advertisements, educational and training materials, presentations and so on. In combination with their print initiatives, companies also have “new media” opportunities — creating content for electronic communications, such as the Web, an Intranet, DVDs and CD-ROMs, and e-newsletters — each medium requiring that the content be prepared just a little differently, based on its output intention.
David Creamer, owner of I.D.E.A.S. Training, Bonsall, CA, says that there is greater burden on businesses to develop strategies for both print and e-media, and as a result, must understand the nuances of how content should be prepared for each “product.” A document intended for print, for example, must be created in a very different way than content destined for a corporate Intranet.
Fundamentally, content for print and content for electronic distribution, differ in color space. A file bound for the Web should be set up to enable a monitor, which reads color in variations of red, green and blue, to read and reproduce the file. Electronic files should be also be “low resolution,” meaning there are fewer pixels required (and, thus, a smaller file size) to view on a monitor.
Conversely, print is a bit pickier. Most printers read and process in four-color (cyan, magenta, yellow and black, “CMYK) and require very-high-resolution graphics and text in order to output crisply. FlightCheck scans four-color documents, flags potential printing problems and provides a detailed preflight report.
Clearly, it complicates operations for businesses — dealing with how to take all this content, massage it into the necessary form, and processing it. When content is not prepared correctly, based on its output intention, there is a cost, sometimes hard, sometimes soft, to “fix” the content. It is best to prevent errors by using FlightCheck to preflight content.
“Making content” is very much like a manufacturing assembly line. As an automobile is being created, it passes along various production stages, where parts are added until the car is complete. But what happens if the car skips a stage — leaving it without an engine block, for example — and no one notices the error until the car is rolling off the line. It is an expense for the manufacturer to disassemble that car, add the engine, and reassemble it until the car is whole.
Content is no different. Digital files that are incomplete or inappropriately created can take time and money for their creator to fix. FlightCheck, the preflight software from Markzware, can check digital files and warn of potential problems before printing.
“Everyone can make a PDF file on the computer simply by selecting the print-to-PDF option, for example. It does not mean that the file created is a production-quality PDF,” explains Steve Shinnick, vice president of sales for All Systems Integration, an international graphic arts and printing integration firm. Shinnick consults with companies across the globe, suggesting and implementing technologies that help his clients create, manage and distribute content in the most effective and cost-efficient way. FlightCheck can check PDF files and many other file formats.
Fortunately, content creators don’t have to be formally-trained graphic artists to prepare good files, suggests Shinnick. There are low-cost software solutions — commonly referred to in the print industry as preflight software — that help businesses to ensure their content will render appropriately, no matter how it’s disseminated.
Preflight Solution for the Digital Workflow
Preflight software, such as FlightCheck by Markzware, will thoroughly check digital files and verify that output specifications are met. The investment in preflight software is minimal. Yet, this solution could save the business money and time in the recreation of “problematic” digital files. Try the free FlightCheck demo and preflight the content you create, before output. For more printing solutions, please visit the Markzware Products page.
Print Content Preflight Software – Check Digital Files with FlightCheck
