There is a great discussion going on in the Group of Prepress, Print & Color Management Professionals over on Linkedin, started by Cindy (Bailey) Wingo, where in short 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

Great replies, but it is the last post, which I will start with; which is the summary as far as quality-minded design and publishing users are concerned with, in the overall workflow process to printed 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 was in response to the usual postflighting options mentioned for later stage PDF’s and the likes. This is fine and true, as a step right before the RIP, but not the entire truth; actually far from it. You need to Preflight FIRST before even making a PDF print-file. What was encouraging was the facts brought forth by industry expert (I.D.E.A.S Training) and certified Adobe and Quark trainer, David Creamer and our own Mary Gay (Pettit) Marchese, for this is the way to make a publishing and print workflow truly flow.

David started by sharing some great PDF’s on how to properly prepare desktop publishing layouts for print. Here was one great educational piece for graphic designers and publishers you can download here…

Mary Gay quickly pointed out to those pushing only the postflight option, which is of course needed after the PDF is made, that they could be in for major workflow problems with this:

“FlightCheck or even preflight generally speaking is all about catching problems before sending that native file to the printer with fonts and images (still used today) or outputting to PDF or otherwise directly printing that file.”

And then of course Mr. Creamer’s point, which we highlighted above but is more than worth to repeat again, “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 and your quality control will pay off in excellent, top-notch output; whether it is to PDF, or as a packaged native job with all fonts and images to the printer, make sure you preflight.

For more info on incredible uses of FlightCheck Professional v6.5, please see:

FlightCheck Professional v6.5 new features and functions

FACT: Did you know that FlightCheck can both preflight native or source files like Adobe InDesign, Illustrator and QuarkXPress as well as postflight processed files, such as EPS and PDFs? It can, all via one stand-alone application.

Tags: David Creamer, flightcheck professional, graphic design, pdf preflight, preflighting, preparing files for output, prepress, print-file, Printing, quality control, ROI

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 10th, 2010 at 1:28 am and is filed under Markzware News, Testimonials & Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.