Read over on PrintWeek an interesting development in the area of “preflighting,” which will be shown in May at IPEX 2010 in the UK. Interesting, for we have been saying for years just demanding a PDF file in a certain flavor does not work:

Enfocus unveils PitStop Connect pre-flighting tool

Barney Cox, printweek.com, 09 March 2010
Enfocus has launched PitStop Connect – a software tool that printers can supply to clients to ensure files are produced to their specification so that there are “no more headaches” for creatives.
Source: http://www.printweek.com/PreMediaWeekly

The reason it is even more interesting, is for the fact that preflighting does not start with checking a PDF!  No, it starts with checking native artwork and Quark, InDesign or Illustrator layouts. That is what FlightCheck Professional and it’s exportable Ground Controls or preflight profiles offer. The ability to share what to check for, BEFORE a PDF is created. The fact that just jamming a PDF spec down the throats of the designers has not worked, as you’ll read in the article, also does not surprise me, for we have been seeing and saying that all along! We read in part:  Read more... (500 words, 4 images, estimated 2:00 mins reading time)

I caught this article, “Top Ten Articles on Digital-Engineer.net” over on Graphicstart, which had one, very interesting piece in it’s top ten list:

7. Preflighters around the world: This is you

If we click on that preflight article above, we see it is about an Enfocus survey on preflighting (As Tele2002 accurately said in the first comment, that is more “postflighting“, but anyway.). It is the last comment which I also wanted to share, for it brings home the importance of education;

Marco Kramer |
Yes I suppose so! I didn’t know about Prepressure and have bookmarked it. Looks like I’ve got me some reading to do! Great info about JDF as well.

The boys from Markzware also wrote about this topic: PDF Preflight Problems; same as fifteen years ago -Enfocus survey results
http://www.markzware.com/blogs/pdf-preflight-problems-same-enfocus-survey/2009/06/26/

Source: http://www.digital-engineer.net/archive/entry/preflighters-around-the-world-this-is-you/#comment-12

On that note, don’t forget that FlightCheck Professional, the tool for both the native file preflight as well as the postflight or check on the resulting PDF document, is out as version 6.5. Check out all of the new features and functions for Adobe Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat PDF, QuarkXPress and more here:

http://www.markzware.com/flightcheck_professional

This Drupa may prove nothing else than the show where they all just got along. Take this example, which includes some form of preflighting (Let’s call that postflighting maybe.); Xerox’s FreeFlow workflow collection of approved vendor solutions and products which now includes FUJIFILM Workflow XMF and Heidelberg Prinect as possible connections to the extended Xerox flow.

The FUJIFILM Workflow XMF has some interesting possibilities, as this article on WhatTheyThink.com highlighted;

“XMF provides pre-flighting, native file conversion to PDF, color management, single-click imposition, and job management capabilities. It also enables electronic proofing with a three-dimensional view of the job, permitting the proofer to flip through virtual pages to check flow and alignment as well as color.”
SOURCE: WhatTheyThink.com

It is good to see major, competing vendors working together to help provide a link between all of these various tools in use at any given shop. This spirit of cooperation is exactly what JDF needs to finally succeed… maybe. In any event it is announcements like these that give promise to truly automated workflows. Now, how to we ensure that everything that is fed into these workflows is print-ready? FlightCheck.