Markzware poses this question for you:

What areas of digital files are most important when preflighting?  Colors, fonts, images? All of them? or something else?

Ted Smith, owner/art director at Ted Smith Creative Services responded by saying:

In pre-flighting any project, everything is of equal weight.  The lack of mis-linking of any part of the file can lead to poor if not disastrous results.

If I had to choose the LEAST important, it would be color.  Since most commercial printers have RIP software that it programmed specifically to their machines, having to convert or match colors is probably something that is going to occur anyway, regardless of the settings you may include. It is also the most subjective of elements, since no two people will see color exactly the same for physical, cultural or environmental reasons.  Also, the problems of ink versus pixels is an issue that few seem to grasp, despite numerous discussion (the old additive vs. subtractive color theory).

Fonts are very important, but can be worked around if there is a problem; substituting brand or even whole typefaces can be done with a little work. The WORST would have to be (short of the master file itself) the images; without them the whole job is dead in the water.  Read more... (1691 words, estimated 6:46 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!

Earlier this month, we presented you part three in a series of posts on preflighting titled, “Preflighting 101 – Part 2; Common Issues- Layout Problems.” Today we dive into more specifics on a electronic preflighting software in the form of, no surprise, FlightCheck Professional v6. In particular about the all important Ground Control settings:

FlightCheck Professional Ground Controls - Images Section

IIII. FLIGHTCHECK Professional v6 Concepts

IIII a. Ground Controls

FlightCheck Professional preflighting software by Markzware is a stand-alone application that electronically preflights numerous types of files in mere seconds. These file formats include QuarkXPress, Adobe InDesign, Adobe PDF, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop and several others- not to mention individual image formats. The first step of preflighting with FlightCheck is setting up the Ground Controls. The Ground Controls enable you to tell FlightCheck how it should inform you about the document being checked. By default (The “Default Settings”) the Ground Control settings have many items checked to “on”, which you may not need to worry about.  Read more... (654 words, 1 image, estimated 2:37 mins reading time)

This is a great, often overlooked, feature of FlightCheck Professional v6- the ability to open or preflight two (or more) documents at a time. This allows you to very effectively compare the two and see the differences, if any. We have heard from users doing this and thought it wise to share with you in the form of a video… plus, a few other general preflight tips; showing how you *could* check each image in Adobe Photoshop separately or just use FlightCheck to get the job done for you within seconds:

Sometimes you have to scream to get people’s attention. This is especially true of preparing documents for print and direct mail. The most reliable format for reaching potential audiences is still the printed word, and the ability to create eye-catching and immediate response fliers and newsletters has been greatly enhanced by digital technologies. It also involves checking the integrity of the digital file before final print or manufacture — a practice otherwise known as ‘preflighting,’ which can be implemented with Markzware’s FlightCheck Professional.

Designing the mailer

Organizations rely on direct mail to deliver their message to potential and current constituents. This thought is critical in the design process. Bright colors, large type and flashy graphics all catch the eye. The goal is get recipients to stop and read the piece before they toss it into the recycling bin.

Red, Orange, and green all tend to stop the eye and direct recipients to the message on the mailer. paper stock also plays a role; textures and unusual sizes help distinguish your mailer from the next. However, organizations that rely on in-house printing need to make sure their laser printers can handle the stock and using the paper does not increase the cost of mailing.  Read more... (275 words, estimated 1:06 mins reading time)

Press Release 6/11/08

Adobe Announces Acrobat Pro 9, Creative Suite 3.3

by Jeff Gamet, 12:05 AM EDT, June 2nd, 2008

Adobe announced Acrobat Pro 9, the next version of its PDF viewing and editing application, along with Creative Suite 3.3 on Monday. Adobe Acrobat Pro 9 will include native Flash support, enhanced collaboration tools like PDF Portfolios, improved print production tools, and support for Adobe PDF Print Engine 2.

PDF Portfolios lets Acrobat users bundle documents, images and videos together as packages with summaries, create PDF forms and collect and analyze form data without requiring IT department involvement. Portfolios are compatible with the new (in beta) Acrobat.com hosted services that support document collaboration.

Adobe Acrobat Portfolios

Acrobat Pro 9 will include new preflighting and auto correction features for print production environments. It supports RGB and CMYK conversions, spot color remapping, and overprint preview. Acrobat Pro 9 also includes an Object Inspector for reviewing the metadata associated with any selected object, can identify a wide range of differences in document versions, and offers full support for PDF/A, PDF/X, PDF/X-4p, PDF/X-5 and PDF/E.

Preflight, in the graphic arts sense, is the process of checking a digital document before it goes to plate, print or otherwise output (exported – such as to PDF). It traditionally is a way to check quality before going to the printing press, digital or otherwise, but can also be used to check online banners and gifs. Preflight is best done on the source document, such as those created in Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, QuarkXPress or Corel!Draw as some examples, before becoming a PDF (Portable Document Format). Similar to a pilot whom walks around and performs a pre take-off pre-flight check, preflighting for designers and prepress operators should be a must.

The term preflight was first used during a presentation in 1990 by Chuck Weger, a well know industry consultant. There were some early on postscript (rips) that interperted data and provided a preflight report of sorts. However the first true preflight application came from Markzware and was wisely called FlightCheck another term pilots also use.

Even before FlightCheck® was out on the market, Markzware applied for and was dully granted a U.S. Patent Number 5,963,641 – ‘Device and method for examining, verifying, correcting and approving electronic documents prior to printing, transmission or recording.’  Read more... (508 words, 1 image, estimated 2:02 mins reading time)

We have heard of many creatives and designers starting to use FlightCheck to check their web banners before posting.

This video explains the quick and easy process of batch checking images files to ensure either web or print quality. Users of Photoshop or other image editing tools, should love this one!

Hello, my name is David Dilling from Markzware, thanks for joining us today. We are going to go over FlightCheck Professional, Markzware advanced preflight tool in comparison to Adobe built-in preflight within InDesign CS3 and CS2 I believe.

Over the years, we have seen more and more seemingly thinking that they are getting full-fledged preflight if they use Adobe InDesign built-in preflight tool within InDesign. Well, I am here to tell you that simply is not true.

Furthermore even calling it a preflight function is actually stretching the truth. It is not rules based, meaning you cannot even change what you want to check for, you have no say in that whatsoever in the built-in feature within InDesign it just gives you the information it gives you. Yes, it has nice info for colors, fonts and images even though it is pretty limited at that so it has a certain use for sure, however it is far from a professional preflight tool, such as FlightCheck.  Read more... (1380 words, estimated 5:31 mins reading time)