For the recent Amsterdam InDesign User Group meeting, Markzware was going to donate a Q2ID (QuarkXPress to Adobe InDesign conversion Plug-in), but that would be too logical. So this time we got Gabriel Powell, Chairman of the Netherlands InDesign User Group,  a FlightCheck Professional v6.5, which can preflight 50+ file formats, as a stand-alone preflight and packaging tool, including Adobe Illustrator, PDF and of course InDesign. And the winner was… drum-roll please:

Peter van der Zon
Mediacollege Amsterdam
docent GV
(graphic arts teacher)

To learn more about what they discussed at that meeting and for future events about Adobe InDesign in Holland, see:
http://www.indesignusergroup.com/chapters/amsterdam/

They also offer a very informative and handy publication for their Dutch members:

“Het nIDug Magazine is het eerste digitale magazine dat gewijd is aan InDesign en de bloeiende gemeenschap van InDesign professionals in Nederland.”

InDesign Dutch Forum:

http://www.indesignusergroup.nl/forum/punbb/

Close to fifteen years on the same question arises, time and time again, with regards to quality control in the design to print process:

Where is the best place to preflight the art-work or print layout?

Stop a preflight problem in an element at the design stage, it may only set you back $10€; that same problem on the press will cost you potentially $thousands€. This chart answers that age-old question pretty clearly and shows how simple preflight controls can greatly improve your ROI. Preflighting is not a process just ‘done by someone else’ in the manufacturing of your designs you want to take flight in the form or a printed piece. It should be done throughout in the workflow, time and time again. Just ask Toyota and their recent huge recall of Prius automobilies due to faulty brake software.

Naturally each workflow varies, often greatly, but as a rule of thumb, you should preflight with tools like FlightCheck Professional v6.5 just before you are about to:

A) Send off to another party to work further on the layout or design
B) Before using received  artwork from other sources
C) Whenever something is unsure or elements “act-up” in the layout
D) (before) Output or Export to PDF or Print
E) Postflight the resulting/received print PDF file
 Read more... (341 words, 1 image, estimated 1:22 mins reading time)

We now have 108 educational and useful videos created and uploaded on the Markzware TV channel on YouTube. We have been active there for about a year-and-a-half and it has proven to be an excellent way to both demonstrate, as well as offer support for our preflighting and conversion software.

Here was our very first upload on how to preflight CS3 about Adobe InDesign CS3 Preflighting vs FlightCheck…


And here are some of  the various categories or groups of videos, which YouTube calls, “PlayLists” which you may find useful or perhaps want to share (Tip: Use the little “>” buttons to the left and right of each embedded playlist to browse the selection of videos available):

Product Demonstrations – Markzware

Testimonials (video) – Markzware

Markzware Technical Support Videos

Many more video playlist’s to watch, for all and any in graphic design, printing or publishing… Whether you are looking for Adobe file conversion, InDesign troubleshooting, Quark XTensions or a way to better output your color graphics. See: http://www.youtube.com/user/markzwareTV#play/playlists

By the way, here are some cool advanced YouTube tricks for embedding and sharing videos:
URL tips and tricks with YouTube.com

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)

Here was a nice little article and preflight checklist named, “Prepress Checklist : Use on Graphic Design Projects Sending Out to Printers.” Something to consider before printing color graphics or sending off your valuable graphics to be printed. It is more than just running an electronic quality assurance check on your Adobe Acrobat or InDesign files with their Live Prelight or Markzware’s FlightCheck application, but a process and dedication to perfection- in otherwords, “Prepress“:

PREFLIGHT CHECKLIST

___ The files are camera ready

-> HARD COPY (mark through if not needed)

___ Desktop printed files are done according to the printer’s instructions

___ Files are in order

___ Files are complete

___ Separations (if color)

___ Registration marks (if color)

___ Everything aligned

___ Headlines spelled correctly

-> ELECTRONIC COPY (mark through if not needed)

___ Everything aligned

___ Headlines spelled correctly

___ Headlines spelled correctly

___ Fonts embedded (PDF)

___ Art files included (for Non-PDF documents)

___ Proof copy for the press is supplied (if necessary)

___ The files are all on disk OR

___ Special instructions are included  Read more... (247 words, estimated 59 secs reading time)

The VIGC has launched a set of 13 new “Live Preflight” profiles for they layout program, Adobe InDesign CS4. Here we read in part what they said:

“You have to deal with problems at the source. Trying to fix them after, which is the traditional process, does not only lead to loss of quality, but also loss of precious time. There are tools on the market to preflight native files from design applications, but these are tools that need to be bought separately. Consequently, they are not used on a broad scale. That is why it is so important that Adobe now has integrated this tool into its design application, InDesign CS4. Today, designers have no reasons not to check their files upfront unless it is to assemble the right profiles. VIGC is filling this important gap in the market with the launch of its 13 VIGC Live Preflight Profiles.” Essential parameters during design and layout phase with the Live Preflight in Adobe InDesign CS4 (an Adobe design cs upgrade from CS3), you can check around thirty important parameters. Some of them are obvious, like the number of spot colors used and the resolution of images. “But some are very technical”, says Didier Haazen, senior consultant and PDF Expert at VIGC. “However, they are at least recommended, some others are even essential. Take the ‘transparency blending space’ for example. It is something that many people have never heard of. But if this is set the wrong way, RGB instead of CMYK, when you want to go to print, you will get all kinds of unwanted, strange effects where the transparency is being flattened during PDF file creation.
Source: http://www.printingquestions.com/  Read more... (286 words, estimated 1:09 mins reading time)

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 an article about Preflighting and in particular Markzware’s FlightCheck Professional and Enfocus’ PitStop Professional from PrintMedia Management in the U.K.

Preflight companies Markzware and Enfocus educate in this March 2009 article.

It starts off with this:

“There have been many changes and developments within the print industry over the last 10 years, but there’s one area that’s stubbornly refusing to change: file errors.

According to preflight solutions providers Markzware and Enfocus, the most common errors to emerge from preflight checks are the same ones that have been occurring for years. Issues like missing fonts, low-res images, unlinked graphics and inadequate bleeds all keep cropping up in surveys of common file issues.”
SOURCE: http://www.fcm-ezines.com/pmm/pmm-mar09/ – PrintMedia Management, March 2009 print edition U.K., page 44.
(flip to page 44, article is titled, “Make no mistake.”)

This is a nice piece which has quotes from both Markzware and Enfocus with their views on preflighting and generally the importance of it throughout the workflow. You can read the full article here and then just flip the eZine to page 44 and there you can see the full article and zoom in to read, unless you have eyes like an eagle! Please feel free to comment your thoughts on preflight below.

Often just preflighting alone is not enough and here was an interesting post about an issue with Adobe’s InDesign Live Preflighting, which also brings up a good point about preflighting in general:

“Every linked file with a forward or backward slash won’t get collected and will even crash InDesign. I know… I know… you never use slashes in a file-name, right? Well neither do I. But that actually makes it even more dangerous because it’s not something I’m thinking about when I’m creating artwork and I always receive a lot of files from third parties.”
Source: http://www.graphicstart.com/item.php?itemid=1040443

The point being, this bug aside which surely will get fixed- you can better check everything that comes in, perhaps even with a stand-alone tool, such as FlightCheck Professional. The advantage there is FlightCheck can check the native images and files stand-alone, without the need to open Illustrator or Photoshop, for instance. We even have a little movie about using FlightCheck to check images:

Preflight Checking a batch of Images with FlightCheck

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.