FlightCheck Professional v6.5 – Customer Workflow & Testimonial

“FlightCheck is our safe-guard. Through its customizable ground controls we are able to flag potential problems with all placed elements before they get to the final QC process. I would recommend FlightCheck to others. A company’s digital assets in the world of print are its most important. FlightCheck confirms and guards the integrity of files and ensures that there will be no printability concerns in the final product.”
Shawn Vazinski, Production Manager
Lachina Publishing Services

From: Shawn Vazinski <xxxxx@lachina.com>
Date: March 8, 2010 10:44:55 PM
To: Mary Gay <pr@markzware.com>
Subject: Re: Markzware/FlightCheck

1. So, tell us a little about yourself.  Please provide your company name and location along with your professional title .
As Production Manager for Lachina Publishing Services in Cleveland, Ohio, my duties range on a daily basis, from making assignments, balancing workflow, managing technology initiatives, enhancing productivity through better software practices or trying new things, and talking with the staff about any issues they are facing technologically or otherwise.

2.  How did you get started in this industry
I started in the graphic-design industry first as a print design art director, but really started into publishing as a production manager working on periodicals.  Read more... (842 words, 2 images, estimated 3:22 mins reading time)

As we have discussed in an earlier post, FlightCheck Professional v6.5 is licensed to one person, one machine. How can you change your license from one machine to another?

Changing Machines-
Wherever FlightCheck Professional v6.5 is installed, you can de-activate it from that machine in a very easy fashion. If you want to switch a hard-drive or machines, it *is* very important to first de-activate your license. Then simply re-install, or better said, activate on your other system. Under the “Help” menu up above in FlightCheck on the active machine, choose, “Activation Window” and then select de-activate and then re-install where you like. Here are some screen shots of the process:

If you need more information on FlightCheck Professional v6.5, please see here:

http://www.markzware.com/flightcheck_professional/

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Here was a quote from a well know figure in our graphic arts sector which I thought was awesome. It also happens to say what preflighting in the creative process is all about, although this can apply to any level of quality assurance within the design workflow:

“If you don’t have time to do it right,
when will you have time to do it over?”

Terry White
http://terrywhite.com/tw/Welcome.html

Apart from being a columnist for Layers Magazine and X-OLOGY Magazine Terry is also Worldwide Adobe Creative Suite Design Evangelist.

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)

Here was a great one we picked up on over at Posterous and their fine assortment of designer orientated blogs. This inspiring video is titled, “The making of a book cover [time-lapse video]” and was posted by AllTop a Guy Kawasaki venture, among ventures. Too bad many graphic designers push preflighting their Illustrations and InDesign layouts to the next party, as in the print-shop. I wouldn’t trust anyone to mess with this after that design was exported… Amazing work here:

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/

We have seen the ROI and value preflighting adds to the design-to-print workflow in chart form, now let’s hear from a real user. In this case, it is from Randy Jamerson, Prepress systems administrator for EBSCO Media.

Located in Birmingham, Alabama EBSCO Media is one of the largest full-service sheetfed printers in the country. More info on their operation at the end, now onto how they use FlightCheck:

“FlightCheck has evolved into a very robust and customizable product.  For example, if your workflow automatically converts RGB to CMYK and honors tagged profiles, you can customize FlightCheck so that it does not flag these as error conditions.“

Randy Jamerson, EBSCO Media

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From: Randy Jamerson
Date: February 19, 2010 4:57:23 PM GMT+01:00
To: Mary Gay <pr A_T markzware.com>
Subject: Re: Markzware/Congratulations/Questions for blog

Here are some thoughts that maybe you can use in your blog.

I was hired at EBSCO Media to be the first “Preflight” person in 1994. We
didn’t have FlightCheck and desktop publishing programs ( Quark and
Pagemaker) at that time had non-existent or very rudimentary tools for
preflight.  Every image and graphic file associated with a job had to be
individually scrutinized. When FlightCheck arrived, it was one of those
“greater than sliced bread” events.  Read more... (586 words, 1 image, estimated 2:21 mins reading time)

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)

There is a great discussion going on in the Group of Prepress, Print & Color Management Professionals over on Linkedin, started by Cindy (Bailey) Wingo, where in short she asked:

“What are the industry standards for producing clean, RIPpable files?” … “What is the industry standard for excellence in pre-flighting files?“

Source: Group of Prepress, Print & Color Management Professionals

Great replies, but it is the last post, which I will start with; which is the summary as far as quality-minded design and publishing users are concerned with, in the overall workflow process to printed output:

“Preflighting should happen even before the PDF is even created. Bad files make bad PDFs. That’s why programs such as FlightCheck are so invaluable.“

Source: David Creamer via the Group of Prepress, Print & Color Management Professionals

This was in response to the usual postflighting options mentioned for later stage PDF’s and the likes. This is fine and true, as a step right before the RIP, but not the entire truth; actually far from it. You need to Preflight FIRST before even making a PDF print-file. What was encouraging was the facts brought forth by industry expert (I.D.E.A.S Training) and certified Adobe and Quark trainer, David Creamer and our own Mary Gay (Pettit) Marchese, for this is the way to make a publishing and print workflow truly flow.  Read more... (501 words, 2 images, estimated 2:00 mins reading time)

Preflight oder Postflight

PREFLIGHT
Prozess des Analysierens von nativen Dateien bevor sie in einen Prepress-Workflow eingespeist werden. Damit wird sichergestellt, dass die Daten für den jeweiligen Verwendungszweck aufbereitet sind. (Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, QuarkXPress, Microsoft Publisher, etc)

POSTFLIGHT
Prozess des Analysierens von bereits verarbeiteten Daten (PostScript, PDF, DCS2, etc.) zur Qualitätskontrolle in einem digitalen Prepress-Workflow.

MARKZWARE
Markzware bietet Ihnen sowohl Preflighting von nativen Daten wie auch Postflighting von PDF-Daten in verschiedenen Ausführungen (unterstützt mehr als 40 Dateiformate.) Was auch immer Sie tun, am besten stellen Sie sicher, dass das Preflighting in Ihrem Arbeitsablauf so früh wie möglich geschieht.

http://www.markzware.com/preflight/

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FlightCheck PROFESSIONAL v6.5 NEU !

Desktop Preflighting und Postflighting mit dem mehrfach preisgekrönten selbstständigen klassischen Programm.

• PDF/X, Pass4Press und andere PDF Ground Control Sets
• Native Dateien-Ground Controls
• In deutscher, englischer, französischer und niederländischer Sprache
• Mac OS X, Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.1
• Führt Sie zu einem spezifischen Problem in ihrer Datei
• Funktion „Job sammeln“ ermöglicht es Ihnen, alle Datei-Elemente in einem Ordner zu sammeln
• Einfach zu benutzen und Sie werden schnell davon profitieren!

Eine Vollversion kostet € 499 (Special limited Price nu €399). Mehrfachlizenzen sind möglich.  Read more... (249 words, estimated 60 secs reading time)