Soft proofing and ad preflight have long gone good together; sort of like white wine with fish. Thus it was with interest that we read of this newly revised product offering from Vio for magazine and newspaper publishers:

Vio relaunches Certified Soft Proofing software as part of Adsend

printweek.com, 01 October 2009

Vio has redeveloped its Vio Certified Soft Proofing (VCSP) software, which is now being offered as part of its Adsend browser application.

In addition, the software, which is designed to enable advertisers to deliver display advertising directly to a publisher, has recently been adopted by the Guardian and the Observer, Vio has said.

The new software enables publishers to mandate a soft proof or to offer it as an option by publication or even by advertising type, the company said.
Source:
http://www.printweek.com/Vio-relaunches-Certified-Soft-Proofing-software-part-Adsend/

Markzware FlightCheck Professional v6.5 is newly released with a host of new features and functions, including Quark 8, Adobe InDesign Illustrator, PDF CS4, Adobe CS 3 (including Adobe CS 3 Master Collection), Adobe CS 4, and other tweaked file format support- more than 50 of them. A soft-proof is only as good as the preflight report and a quality assurance check done on the layout before the Acrobat PDF output was performed. (Acrobat or any flavor of print industry standard PDFs.). Just as Jon Warner from Trade Press Media Group told us last month in this interview…  Read more... (254 words, estimated 1:01 mins reading time)

Here is a neat and perhaps handy new resource for viewing and grouping RSS feeds called WebPartner. Standard, you can monitor all things Apple and another group of feeds for creative and graphic designer type stuff, you know Adobe Creative Suite stuff, etc. Here is Markzware’s page on WebPartner; just another way to view our feeds and this blog perhaps:

Don’t forget; a NEW version of FlightCheck is out. Preflight and Package or collect fonts and images from more than 50 file formats!

This is a classic (Was all over Twitter last week and in times past), and oh so true, “8 or more ways to drive a graphic designer mad.” Basically, many preflight issues that the newly released FlightCheck Pro v6.5 could help solve… You have to love their first example;
“When you have to send a graphic designer a document, make sure it’s made with a program from Microsoft Office. PC version if possible. If you have to send pictures, you’ll have more success in driving them mad if, instead of just sending a jpeg or a raw camera file, you embed the pictures inside a Microsoft Office document like Word or Powerpoint. Don’t forget to lower the resolution to 72 dpi so that they’ll have to contact you again for a higher quality version. When you send them the ‘higher’ version, make sure the size is at least 50% smaller. And if you’re using email to send the pictures, forget the attachment once in a while.”

Source: http://ghislainroy.com/blog/2007/03/06/8-ways-to-drive-a-graphic-designer-mad  Read more... (241 words, 1 image, estimated 58 secs reading time)

DIY (Do It Yourself) is in. However when it comes to Adobe Photoshop and trying to touch-up the way your house looks on your online listing, you better get a professional graphic designer. Check out this real-life listing and associated picture:

Source: http://newsusa.myfeedportal.com/item.php?&itemid=1088960

Would have been cheaper to paint the grass and get a new set of shrubs on the side, then to publish this. Yes, this falls in the category pre-preflight. By the way, here is the original house listing. I have seen some terrible color graphics, posters and postcards, but this example is a classic! (I like how they have the lawn mower in there too!)

Here is an nice initiative from a print-shop in the U.K.- online school for print buyers:

Manchester-based printer Frederik Law has launched an online ‘Print School’ aimed at helping customers get the most out of the medium.
The print school section of the company’s website offers a resource for those new to design and small business owners to help them get to grips with print terminology. It also includes best practice guides that are open for users to comment on and ask questions.

Frederick Law managing director Nicky Acton said: “Quite frequently our customers are unsure what certain printing terms mean, we are more than happy to explain but felt an online resource would be helpful.

“We also find it common for graphic designers new to print to send us what they consider to be print ready documents, yet they are missing vital things such as crop marks and bleed. By providing an online print school we are offering our knowledge and experience with an opportunity for people to comment or ask questions.”
Source: PrintWeek UK

You can check out the informative, educational site on how to prepare files for print and output to Adobe PDF here:  Read more... (236 words, 1 image, estimated 57 secs reading time)

Are you a graphic designer, publisher or prepress operator with a story to tell? Want to be a guest blogger here? Then let us know via email to pr@markzware.com today!

Does not matter if you have an interesting piece of workflow knowledge or a tip-and-trick to share about layout applications, let us know! Naturally, if you have something to share about how you use a Markzware application, plug-in or XTension all the merrier, but we want to hear what you have to share.

Email Mary Gay and she can get you set-up.

Have a great day.

Live Preflight from InDesign, PitStop or FlightCheck?

Markzware April 2009 News

Contents:

• * MarkzTools 8 – now shipping!
• * PUB2ID v4 (MSPublisher to InDesign) conversion tool ships!
• * New Q2ID (Quark to InDesign) and ID2Q (InDesign to Quark) videos!
• * “In flight, preflight, and post flight” by Print & Paper Monthly
• * Cannot Open InDesign- always crashing: What can I do?
• * Markzware Support Videos
• * S P E C I A L  – QuarkXPress 8 – Upgrade from any version AND get ID2Q FREE!

Spring is in the air and with that warm thought we bring you this fresh Markzware newsletter for April 2009! If you would like to order or have questions, comments or feedback, please reply to this email or contact us today.

Friendly Regards,
David Dilling
Markzware b.v. Europe
http://www.markzware.com

— — — — — — — — — — — — —

MarkzTools 8 XT now shipping!
Fix corrupted or damaged QuarkXPress 8 (or lower) projects.
Markzware releases the latest version of MarkzTools, version 8. This XTension will work within QuarkXPress 8 or 7 and amongst other features, can attempt to repair or salvage your crashing or damaged QuarkXPress files. See:
http://markzware.com/markztools  Read more... (573 words, estimated 2:18 mins reading time)

Here is a blog post titled, “Design can save the newspaper.” It brings up some interesting points and the TED video is awesome, which I have embedded below. Seems this Polish graphic designer, who layouts graphics, has pretty much proven that an attractive, poster-like design of newspapers will lead to more subscribers and advertisers. So all of you newspaper publishers out there, do not cut your graphics layout design, conversion, preflight and logo design software budgets just yet…

Keep in mind that Markzware can help to keep you within your budget with its impressive line of affordable software products.

By Vanessa Voltolina and Jason Fell

Publishers using InDesign to produce photo-heavy magazines now have two plug-in options that aim to enhance the photo identification and style conversion processes.

PUB2ID (Markzware’s Publisher document converter) translates the details of the content within a Publisher document and re-creates it within InDesign, converting page size, positioning, fonts and styles, text attributes, layers, and linked text boxes, as well as automatically extracts images embedded in the Publisher file.

Magazine publishing clients include the National Publishers Group and Rockwall, Texas-based Living magazine. According to AlphaGraphics lead graphic designer Bruce Harris, using the updated plug-in saves him between 15 minutes to an hour. “I especially like how it exports the images to a separate folder automatically.”

Read more

As many have seen, I have been on this Twitter rush lately. Seriously, it is such a cool communications tool. (See last post) And in reference to my last blog post, around that same Twitter thread, we got this awesome “Tweetimonial” or testimonial on FlightCheck Professional from one of the power users on Twitter and a graphic designer, whom loves Helvetica btw, @imjustcreative. Check it out:

Graphic design and power Twitter user @imjustcreative had this to say about FlightCheck

You can follow Markzware, imjustcreative mistygirlph (she Re-tweeted it as well, as you can see above) and many more on Twitter for free. Just sign-up. It is a great resource and you can learn a lot.

@tommytrc Re-Tweets this awesome comment further along it's path of communication...

OK, gotta get back to some marketing campaigns. Have a great one.