Adobe InDesign files and preflighting; an AdobeTV video by Rufus Deuchler:

“In this sixth episode of CSInsider|Design, I show the new Live Preflight feature in Adobe InDesign CS4. The term Preflight originates from the pre-flight checklists used by pilots prior to take off. In a publishing workflow, preflight is the process of checking a document for integrity and completeness, before it can move on in the workflow.” Source: http://graphicstart.com/item.php?f&itemid=1071437

He references a Wikipedia article which mentions this about preflight (postflight):

Pre-flighting is a term used in the printing industry to describe the process of confirming that the digital files required for the printing process are all present, valid, correctly formatted, and of the desired type. The term originates from the pre-flight checklists used by pilots. The term was first used in a presentation at the Color Connections conference in 1990 by consultant Chuck Weger.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-flight

Speaking of Chuck, watch what he has to say about this moment when he coined the term preflighting, to relate it to the quality control process in prepress and publishing at a show called Color Connections (late 80’s/early 90’s). Filmed in 2008 at the GraphExpo show :

 Read more... (194 words, estimated 47 secs reading time)