Printers – another how-to online social networking presentation, this time from NAQP or the National Association of Quick Printers. You saw our last video from Print 09 from T.J. Tedesco here (Social Media Strategies for Printers and the Future of Printing + free Kodak booklet) and now we have this interesting piece, “Using Social Media to Build Business for printers:”

This presentation was done my John Foley, Jr., CEO of interlinkONE and he can be followed on Twitter via @johnfoleyjr. He gave a very good overview on where and how a print-shop can get started with Twitter (oh, yes, check out the Markzware list of Printers on Twitter!), Linkedin, YouTube, FaceBook and more – all of which Markzware is also busy with:

Markzware on FaceBook: FaceBook Group…
Markzware on Twitter: @Markzware
Markzware on YouTube: MarkzwareTV
Markzware RSS feed: RSS Feed…
Markzware on Linkedin: Linkedin Group…

We also did a video series on how a printer can get started with Twitter as well…

Having a little fun, while checking out the PRINT 09 show floor with Markzware in Chicago. We are searching for Adobe InDesign and QuarkXpress users and of course those that have heard of us, Markzware and the new FlightCheck Professional v6.5! We also announced a new search engine technology called PageZephyr at this print-show which will examine, preview and let you extract content from many popular desktop layout formats. Look at it like a way to preview InDesign text stories, without the need for Adobe Creative suite, as an example.

Pat Berger of Mercer Color corporation, winner of the recent AMERICAN PRINTER’s first annual Environmental Excellence Awards, stops at PRINT 09 in Chicago to share with us how he uses preflight software application, FlightCheck, Q2ID (QuarkXPress to Adobe InDesign conversion plugin) and what he thought of the new PageZephyr (PageZepher) technology, to index, make searchable and extractable, Quark, InDesign and other proprietary file content at the Markzware booth-Pat Berger of Mercer Color on Markzware at PRINT 09:

Preflighting with FlightCheck Professional v6.5

Jon Warner from Trade Press Media Group talks to us at PRINT 09 in this video on how he uses FlightCheck Professional AND Adobe Acrobat to preflight his incoming files for their print workflow. He uses both; but prefers FlightCheck (for everything first) due to it’s ease-of-use and support of more than 50 file formats such as InDesign, Illustrator, QuarkXPress, PDF and others. Much more effective to preflight before outputting to PDF:

In the last segment, you see Doug Rosen, Markzware project manager, going into some advanced details with Jon on font search paths for helping optimize your font preflighting in FlightCheck. FlightCheck Professional v6.5 is now shipping with CS4 and Quark8 support. See:
http://www.markzware.com/flightcheck_…

The reason it was so great to hear Jon’s comments, is that some out there in the graphic arts industry, or what is it called now, “print media“, like to think that it is best to funnel this multi-step process called preflight to the very end of the workflow and even some are trying to automate preflight checking. It is however, largely a human process which requires a simple checklist to work best and should be done at every step in the graphics workflow where the layout file switches hands or is due to be output (see preflight defined). As Dr. Demming said on quality assurance,

“Quality is everyone’s responsibility.”

Print has had it’s challenges the last year or two and the  PRINT 09 trade show was no exception in showing us that just earlier this week in Chicago, with less than packed attendance. Yet, let’s face it; nothing beats a high-quality, properly preflighted, prepped and output print advertisement in a known print publication. So, we read here some great tips for both the advertiser as well as graphic designers:

Three Things You Should Know About Print Ads That Sell

Context matters. Many of the ads that drove purchase were of natural interest to the readers of the magazines in which they appeared. Ads for America’s Milk Processors (purchased by 55% of ad readers), Vaseline Clinical Therapy Body Lotion (purchased by 26% of ad readers) and Lipitor (purchased by 18% of ad readers), for instance, all stress wellness and healing, and all appeared in Health magazine. The Discovery Channel’s “Dirty Jobs” ad appeared in Maxim, whose audience is largely male. Let’s face it — dirty jobs may be more interesting to men than women; 21% of ad readers said they watched the show as a result of seeing this ad. So, too, with the James Bond-themed Swatch ad in Wired, another male-oriented title. It was the top ad in the watch category — and I think it’s safe to say that, in general, more men than women wish they were James Bond. Moreover, the TurboTax ad in Us Weekly appeared a mere five weeks before the dreaded April 15 Tax Day — and 27% of ad readers said the ad sparked their purchase.  Read more... (452 words, estimated 1:48 mins reading time)

From the show floor of PRINT 09, we post you this interesting film-

Xerox DirectMail on the “Prepress for Digital Printing” Book and retro FlightCheck; a video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkj70fyy-CI

Transcript:
How many of you remember this one? Why fight it, preflight it! With FlightCheck. Now this is an old one, going a little bit retro here. I don’t know from when this was exactly, probably about 1999 and maybe even earlier, like 97, or 1996 But anyway that brings us to the next subject of today which is a little letter I got a nice direct mail piece, nice to see that. Not only was it a direct mail piece it was personalized and it came from no other than Xerox.

BREAKING- since this video was made, FlightCheck 6.5 with QuarkXPress 8 and CS4 or Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, Acrobat and thus PDF support is now shipping! Save one hundred when purchasing here!

Visit Markzware at PRINT 09 and See:

NEW FLIGHTCHECK® Professional v6.5

and

PageZephyr™

The new & unique search, content extraction and re-publishing tool

Get the full story and discount details here:

Just realized, Print 09 in Chicago is just around the corner, when reading this:

“EFI will display new modules for its print-management information software systems at the Print 09 exhibition, to be held from 11-16 September in Chicago.”
Source: http://www.printingtalk.com/news/efi/efi244.html

Don’t forget to mark your calendar for this big printing trade show. And of course stop by the Markzware booth #6542 and see FlightCheck, which can preflight Adobe Acrobat ( sometimes called Acrobat Adobe ), Q2ID and more… Follow us on Twitter to stay up-to-date, as we tweet from the show floor as well!  We plan some cool things for the show this year and, as always Chicago is a nice place to visit.