Here is a great survey on PDF preflight, that which many also call postflight, which was introduced in this blog post:

Posted by Marco on Jun 23, 2009 in cPDF
In 2008 Enfocus wanted to find out who exactly their clients were. They held a survey. 4.840 users responded. Now who was using what kind of software and on what platform? Where do they live? What’s their primary business? How frequently do they use PDF-files? Do they even check incoming PDF files? And… what were the errors those files contained? See: http://www.digital-engineer.net/archive/entry/preflighters-around-the-world-this-is-you/

The most common preflight problems with PDF print-jobs.

About half have see their print destined PDF’s failing often and the most common problems are non embedded fonts, low res image usage and RGB color space used. Exactly what the problems were about fifteen years ago (Replace non-embedded fonts with missing fonts.) when Markzware first brought out FlightCheck Professional, which can postflight PDF files from Adobe Acrobat (and other software’s) as well as a range of source or native files like XPress, InDesign, MSPublisher and more. View the full survey results here.

Specials going on FlightCheck- save 20-50%! See:
http://www.markzware.com/promotions/  Read more... (208 words, 1 image, estimated 50 secs reading time)

Of course you can handle your inflight (Similar, but different than a full preflight.) needs with Adobe’s Live preflight. We recently read in this excellent article, that there is good reason to use more preflight tools in the same workflow, due to the varying creative and production stages, such as FlightCheck Professional, PitStop Professional and perhaps also InPreflight from Zevrix, which has this new lighter version out as well:

The new InPreflight Studio is a low cost version which targets artists and designers who don’t require the advanced packaging capabilities. It provides the same powerful preflight and reporting solutions as the Pro version. InPreflight Pro is identical to the current version of InPreflight which includes automated packaging of multiple documents and other advanced options.
Source: http://prmac.com/release-id-4999.htm

Quality is what you make of it.

Excellent article came out this month in Print & Paper Monthly about why Markzware’s FlightCheck Professionall and Adobe’s Live Preflighting within Adobe InDesign, should be used all in the same workflow. It is titled, “In flight, preflight, and post flight” and here is available to be read as an online edition as well.

“The question is: why use Adobe’s Live Preflight, Markzware’s FlightCheck Professional and Enfocus’ PitStop together? The answer is simple: for complete quality control.” Source: Print & Paper Monthly (U.K. – March 2009, page 17-18)

The article goes into great detail about where and how to preflight and how to get the most out of your workflow. It is a recommended read for any print-shop or even for publishers and designers, as preflighting crosses borders.

With summer upon us, we wanted to share part of a recent Markzware Adventure in Belizé and Guatemala. You can watch the preflight, take-off and approach of the small cesna flight here: