Let’s just get right to the educational feature film and then below some all important postflight, pardon the pun, commentary. Here is the nicely prepared tutorial titled, “Analyzing and Preflighting Adobe Acrobat PDF Files For Print“:

Great job by http://www.envisionprinting.com/ in highlighting these technical prepress issues and how to tackle finding them in Adobe Acrobat. OK, but did you notice that most of the items he was checking for, are best checked and corrected well before the PDF stage? The main issues were:

* Non embedded Fonts (missing fonts in native file)
* RGB images instead of CMYK
* Low Resolution Images

These common issues and more would have to be fixed by the graphic designer, back within their native files*. Yes, it is utterly important to check the Acrobat PDF you have created, however, by first preflighting and then creating a PDF, you will be ahead of the game. Not only that, but tools like FlightCheck Professional will not only check Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, QuarkXPress, etc, but also the resulting PDF through one VERY easy to use drag-and-drop interface. Furthermore, you can also package all fonts and images together for archiving or compressing and sending to someone else the full job; it will even preflight Adobe Acrobat, check a PDF and collect non-embedded fonts used but not placed within a PDF!  Read more... (239 words, estimated 57 secs reading time)

PrintPlanet is a great site where you can learn about prepress, workflow and get involved in the discussions that take place.  It covers topics like Acrobat Adobe InDesign, etc. Just as their slogan says: Learn, Teach, Debate….

Acrobat Preflight Droplet fails on Intel Mac

Read the latest thread about Acrobat Preflight Droplets http://printplanet.com/forums/prepress-workflow-discussion/16434-acrobat-preflight-droplet-fails-intel-mac

One of the leading suppliers of PDF technologies for print production and document management and archiving, Callas Software, has just announced a new version of it’s pdfToolbox software, version 4. Here is an excerpt from their press release;

“Powerful new features in pdfToolbox 4 include added functionality for imposing everything from business cards and booklets to N-up imposition; improved controls for creating great-looking PDF presentations; and easy creation of PDF versions for localized information or multiple-languages even when you don’t have the creator document or application.

callas pdfToolbox 4 also builds upon its predecessor’s enviable reputation for professional high-end production tools with advanced color controls and an updated version of the same preflight engine used in Adobe® Acrobat® that now supports the latest ISO standards for PDF/A and PDF/E and the recently released PDF/X-4, PDF/X-4p and PDF/X-5.”
Source: http://graphicstart.com/viewarticle.php?articleid=135

They have good PDF editing technology and although some would argue that checking the PDF could be better called a “postflight” it is yet another product offering the quality control process loosely called preflight.

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