Here was a quote from a well know figure in our graphic arts sector which I thought was awesome. It also happens to say what preflighting in the creative process is all about, although this can apply to any level of quality assurance within the design workflow:

“If you don’t have time to do it right,
when will you have time to do it over?”

Terry White
http://terrywhite.com/tw/Welcome.html

Apart from being a columnist for Layers Magazine and X-OLOGY Magazine Terry is also Worldwide Adobe Creative Suite Design Evangelist.

Patrick Marchese, CEO of Markzware, had this to say in a comment on what Steve Job’s is rumored to have said about Adobe, FLASH and the iPad in this Wired.com piece titled, “Google’s ‘Don’t Be Evil’ Mantra is ‘Bullshit,’ Adobe Is Lazy: Apple’s Steve Jobs“:

Posted by: patmarkz | 02/1/10 | 1:58 pm
“imo, there has been no love-loss between Apple and Adobe going all the way back to the TrueType vs Type 1 wars. But, (software) Type 1, PostScript, then PageMaker, started the Desktop Publishing Revolution, not exclusively Apple. So, it again appears that Adobe again is trying to cater to the Apple’s hardware, the iPad: http://www.markzware.com/blogs/adobe-illustrator-indesign-ipad-coming-soon-adobe-asks-feedback/2010/02/01/ and (maybe taking credit for another revolution) regardless how much Steve might not want it to happen…”

Read More http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/01/googles-dont-be-evil-mantra-is-bullshit-adobe-is-lazy-apples-steve-jobs/

A crashing Adobe InDesign or large .INDD document that will not open is truly a bummer. First of course you should try the basics, like making sure your general operating system is running fine (no corrupted fonts or other issues; on a Mac try Cocktail for general system maintenance, for example..) and to look at the InDesign application itself. For instance, it could be a corrupted set of preferences within InDesign, try; Restarting (or starting up) InDesign with the cmd+alt+ctrl+shift keys held down – (tip via @rufusd) now this may help you if the problem is a corrupted InDesign preferences file. However, what if it is something bigger and badder?

Fix Bad Adobe InDesign Documents – a service

Markzware, the makers of CS3/CS4 plugins like Q2ID (Quark to InDesign), FlightCheck and the new content search tool for InDesign, PageZephyr,  has a “no fix, no pay” InDesign File Recovery Service it is offering. This method of repair has a high success rate, working about 80% of the time. It costs only 99 USD/EUR and you can email sales AT markzware.com for more details and the location on where you can submit your bad Adobe file. See:
http://www.markzware.com/blogs/bad-corrupted-adobe-indesign-software-docs/2008/09/15/  Read more... (430 words, estimated 1:43 mins reading time)

We reported back a couple weeks ago in a post titled, “Adobe drops Print Service Provider Program – a Quark opportunity?” the news that was seemingly not going over well with printers and print-shops around the world. Since then, we have seen it turn to outrage, such as this piece (Adobe, you’re breaking my heart) from print-industry guru Frank Romano.

Thus, in all fairness, it is good to also get the Adobe side of things. Which you can in this article from WhatTheyThink.com, who has offered excellent reporting on this news byte:

http://members.whattheythink.com/articles/article.cfm?id=41758

Now, we all know that the Apple tablet is to be announced today (With or without epub format support is the question! [good Q Roelof Janssen!]). Could it be that Adobe sees print drying up and all publishing switching to Steve Job’s latest innovation? I doubt Adobe PDF or InDesign will be dropped soon at all and as a matter of a fact, what moves Apple makes with this new “iSlate” (I hope it is not called that really, as many are saying) could rub Adobe’s hairs the wrong way.  Read more... (254 words, 1 image, estimated 1:01 mins reading time)

We reported last week about how Adobe dropped their service program for printers in a post titled, “Adobe drops Print Service Provider Program – a Quark opportunity?“. Today we see an interesting offer from Quark via their Quark Alliance program for printers:

Adobe Service Network members are invited to join QuarkAlliance and Quark Promote output provider programs at no cost

Quark is offering Adobe® Service Network (ASN) members, current QuarkAlliance™ members, and all printers interested in Quark Promote the opportunity to join Quark® output provider programs at no cost. This special offer will expire on June 30, 2010, so act now to take advantage of member benefits that can include:

• Priority technical support
• QuarkXPress® 8 or upgrades
• Increased market visibility
• New potential revenue opportunities

“At a time when some in our industry are moving away from print, Quark is aggressively maintaining its investment in this community,” said Cyndie Shaffstall, director of QuarkAlliance.

Continues – read more: http://www.quarkalliance.com/

Printers- is this interesting for you? What’s your take on this?

ID2Q und / oder Q2ID…

Q2ID v4 (QuarkXPress zu Adobe InDesign)

Mit Unterstützung von CS4 und QuarkXPress 8:

Markzware veröffentlichte kürzlich Q2ID v4 (199 Euro), das jetzt auch als Plug-in für Adobe InDesign CS4 erhältlich ist und mit einem Klick alle Versionen von QuarkXPress konvertiert! Upgrades für berechtigte aktuelle Anwender finden Sie unter:
http://markzware.com/q2id

—> +++ Dateikonvertierung +++ <—

ID2Q v4 (InDesign zu Quark)

JETZT ebenfalls lieferbar!

Für diejenigen, die eine Konvertierung in die andere Richtung benötigen, hat Markzware gerade eine neue Version des ID2Q v4 XTension-Moduls (199 Euro) herausgebracht. Dieses funktioniert jetzt auch mit QuarkXPress 8 und konvertiert alle Versionen von Adobe InDesign – auch CS4! Siehe:
http://markzware.com/id2q

COMING SOON – PageZephyr!

Resellers in Deutschland:
http://www.markzware.com/resellers/europe/germany/

Resellers in CH:
http://www.markzware.com/resellers/europe/switzerland/

Resellers in AT:
http://www.markzware.com/resellers/europe/austria/

Deutsche Distributor:

ComLine GmbH
Main Office
Am Oxer 33
D-24955 Harrislee

Tel: 0461 / 773 03 30
Fax: 0461 / 773 03 90
info@comline-shop.de
http://www.comline-shop.de

— — — — — — — — — — — — —

Markzware auf Twitter:
Eng: http://twitter.com/Markzware
Deu: http://twitter.com/Markzware_DE

MarkzwareTV auf YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/markzwareTV

Markzware Group auf Linkedin:
http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/70725

Markzware Blog:
http://www.markzware.com/blogs  Read more... (184 words, estimated 44 secs reading time)

The supposed Chinese proverb, “may you live in interesting times“, is perhaps true for those in  publishing (Newspaper, book and magazine publishers), printing and for that matter graphic design, as we read:

Condé Nast and Adobe collaborate on digital magazine app

Relax News

Saturday, 21 November 2009

Publisher Condé Nast and Adobe Systems are developing a digital-magazine application to be compatible with laptops, netbooks, smart phones, and upcoming electronic slate devices.

Wired magazine, which covers tech news and information, will be the first to adapt the app, which will produce full-color, high-resolution images to replicate the experience of reading a print publication with the convenience of the internet.

This collaboration will bring magazine content into digitalized form for devices available in 2010. The companies hope to create a technology that will be applied to the publisher’s other magazines and adopted throughout the industry.  Read more... (299 words, 1 image, estimated 1:12 mins reading time)

Since ICANN, approved the use of non-Latin characters in domain names today, I thought we would stick on the Internet side with this post. Jörg Oyen, the publishing, Adobe and Quark QPS expert friend of ours over in Germany at Oyen.de, sent me a rather ominous Instant message on Skype the other day, “Do you like balls”? he asked. For some reason, I thought, “oh, must be Google Balls” for it sounds very Googlish (sp?) No, he meant Tagul balls or Tagul meta clouds. Here, you can see Jörg’s meta ball from his site here:

Here is the Markzware meta data cloud (no mystery here):

Beware! This Markzware cloud is not complete and this is limitation of Tagul only getting the first 350 keywords or something to that effect. We see FlightCheck in there, but no Q2ID or ID2Q, our popular Quark-to-InDesign and the other way around as well, conversion tools.

Want to see how we made this? Watch the video here, for good control over your meta data, keywords and general SEO is very important for graphic designers, publishers and printers alike (Yes, print-shops included!):

“Content is free. Formats are not” is the article’s title from cnet. Now, this strays away from purely printing, although content in the digital printing world and certainly the publishing sector faces a similar fate:

“Content may be free, but the format in which we buy it certainly is not. As Apple, Google, Red Hat, and others increasingly demonstrate, consumers and enterprises are happy to pay for “free” when packaged in convenient formats that add value to digital goods.
….
All of these (re)purchases strike me that the media world may have problems, but they are mostly of discovering convenient formats in which to deliver content. Formats that suggest, and sometimes demand, payment.”
….
Good content is a necessary precondition to getting paid, but it’s not going to be reason we pay anymore. That reason for payment is the format in which the content is delivered.
Perhaps it’s always been that way, but the physicality of the delivery mechanisms confused us: we were buying the paper but thought we were buying the news.”
Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10369471-16.html  Read more... (348 words, estimated 1:24 mins reading time)

As we have read here in the past, “On the Evolution of PDF; Adobe PDF/X-5g with OPI type prepress workflow“, there are seemingly enough PDF specifications out there. With that in mind, here is an interesting development:

Adobe to host ‘landmark’ PDF meeting

Simon Nias, printweek.com, 02 October 2009

“Adobe Systems will host a “landmark meeting” of the Ghent PDF Workgroup (GWG) later this month that is expected to prove pivotal to the development of PDF automation specifications.

Members of the GWG attending the meeting, which will be held at Adobe’s San Jose headquarters from 29-30 October, will discuss specifications based on the latest PDF/X-4 release.

GWG chairman David Zwang said that the 2009 GWG specifications would result in “some of the most profound advancements in automated PDF compliance”….

“….Those present at the meeting will also discuss and extend ad ticket support for electronic ads and insertion orders, and solidify spectral colour considerations for spot colour identification.”
Source: PrintWeek.co.uk  Read more... (229 words, estimated 55 secs reading time)