In this “making of” the AMERICAN PRINTER TV crew film an interview with Patrick Marchese, Co-founder and CEO of Markzware and a subsequent demonstration of some new, exciting desktop search technology, for indexing and extracting your desktop publishing formats, such as Adobe InDesign and QuarkXPress, from this well know preflight (FlightCheck) and conversion (Quark to InDesign) software developer… more below, but first the video:

Patrick tells us what PageZephyr, the name of this new technology is and briefly what it does. Doug Rosen shows how it works and I stuck in the middle there a small SnapzPro captured demo of some of the key functions of PageZepher. In a nut-shell, it is:

Index, Search, View, Extract and Distribute

QuarkXPress and Adobe InDesign Content -

Partial Transcript:

Gonna do a video demonstration for American PrinterTV on the new PageZephyr…. the filming of, the making of… Basically start with your name… are you ready Doug, getting nervous? No more nervous than normal!

OK, whenever your ready (says the camera man to Patrick)…

Hi my name is Pat Marchese with Markzware and I’m here to introduce a brand new product by the name of PageZephyr (PageZepher). What PageZephyr is, is a reader for Quark, InDesign and soon Publisher PageMaker and other document types.  Read more... (638 words, estimated 2:33 mins reading time)

We at Markzware have done countless FlightCheck Professional and Q2ID (Quark to InDesign) or ID2Q (Adobe InDesign to QuarkXpress) live presentations. Generally, like most truly behind their computer software, it is best to give the audience a live taste of how the software behaves in a true workflow setting. Yes, I have had my share of bad software demonstrations, which is why this video is all the more funny for me and perhaps for you as well:

I HAVE DECIDED TO DELETE THIS VIDEO FROM WITHIN THIS POST. IT IS STILL LINKED BELOW, BUT AFTER SEEING THE ENTIRE THING (LESSON LEARNED) IT DAWNED ON ME THAT THIS MAY BE OFFENSIVE TO CHRISTIANS OR THOSE WHOM LOST LOVED ONES TO CANCER. SORRY.

GRRF – The Last Lecture from Lumalin Productions on Vimeo.

Whether you are a graphic designer, print production publisher or printer, this GRFF – The Last Lecture video may have you on the print production floor (For you have seen your share of software demo’s, that is for sure!)

Color management is like colour management only spelled differently. That about sums up color for many in print media; it is the same color on that screen as on my printed brochure, only it looks different, cries the corporate customer, to the prepress operators dismay. In this tutorial video we get into the deep details on how FlightCheck Professional (Out any day now with CS4 and Quark 8 support) can help you in preflighting color …

… and for that matter preflighting colour (ok, enough jokes with words, but some do call it color preflighting) in a detailed fashion -

a full transcript is below: In this movie I would like to address some problems you might encounter when you work with InDesign layouts QuarkXPress, Adobe Illustrator (YES, FlightCheck does preflight Illustrator files and package all fonts and images too! Video: How to preflight Adobe Illustrator files…) or any other layout application in which you are able to use colors. Let’s dive in…

 Read more... (980 words, estimated 3:55 mins reading time)

It is nearly impossible to make a truly standard, yet open (i.e., allowing many and any customers in) design-to-print workflow; but their are standard tools, tips and tactics to make things flow properly. Here was a great post on the PrintPlanet forum asking for preflight, prepress and general workflow help. It reads:

Basic Workflow Standardization
“I am a print shop manager in an in-plant. One of my biggest problems is fonts. Most of the documents I get are from Word or uneducated Publisher users. Some other problems are users creating a two-color jobs in CMYK and black text not being pure black. Currently we handle everything we get on an individual basis, but it is getting completely out of hand. I need to start putting in place some systems to handle some of these problems

Is there a easy way to convert documents to pdf with the correct specifications before I get them? For example is there a pdf print driver that I can put on my web site or push out to everyone on my network that it will create a pdf to my specifications so I do not have to worry about fonts or poor resolution? If so how much does something like that cost?  Read more... (373 words, estimated 1:30 mins reading time)

We are working hard on new features and functions for our preflight and conversion software and as such, are always glad to share other customer experiences, including with QXP, Adobe InDesign CS3 and Adobe InDesign CS4 (preflight a file without InDesign missing quality control checkpoints). You can also convert QuarkXPress to Adobe InDesign and move content with the Q2ID plug in in InDesign.  Markzware has a nice growing list of video testimonials and also a page with customer quotes. We have taken some of the more interesting ones and highlighted them in this video:

Hi, I’m Khristyl Clerigo and I’m going to show you some of the most interesting Markzware product testimonials.

Let us hear what Shellie L. Hall of Ducktype Digital and Get Creative News has to say about FlightCheck Professional.

As a prepress professional I have spend many hours going through customers’ digital files one by one, checking for everything from fonts, to page size and image resolution to make sure the files would print correctly on press.  Read more... (671 words, estimated 2:41 mins reading time)

Take advantage of Markzware Summer Special and save $200. You can choose of one our award winning conversion solutions for a FREE  Q2ID, PUB2ID and ID2Q. with the purchase of FlightCheck Professional.

Here are some testimonials on how these document conversions tools have helped to save the day:  Read more... (354 words, estimated 1:25 mins reading time)

By Vanessa Voltolina and Jason Fell

Publishers using InDesign to produce photo-heavy magazines now have two plug-in options that aim to enhance the photo identification and style conversion processes.

PUB2ID (Markzware’s Publisher document converter) translates the details of the content within a Publisher document and re-creates it within InDesign, converting page size, positioning, fonts and styles, text attributes, layers, and linked text boxes, as well as automatically extracts images embedded in the Publisher file.

Magazine publishing clients include the National Publishers Group and Rockwall, Texas-based Living magazine. According to AlphaGraphics lead graphic designer Bruce Harris, using the updated plug-in saves him between 15 minutes to an hour. “I especially like how it exports the images to a separate folder automatically.”

Read more

Markzware Announces The Release of PUB2ID V2 For Adobe InDesign CS3 and CS4
Publisher To InDesign Now Runs With Adobe CS4

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SANTA ANA, California, March 11, 2009 — Markzware (http://www.markzware.com), the leading developer of data extraction and conversion software and inventor of preflighting, released an upgrade to its highly recommended conversion tool PUB2ID for Adobe CS3 upgrade CS4. PUB2ID v2 (Microsoft Publisher to Adobe InDesign) is a plug-in that enables users to convert native-application Microsoft Publisher files (MS Publisher versions 2002 through 2007) to Adobe InDesign while preserving the content, as well as the styles and formatting. PUB2ID can be used with an Adobe InDesign 3 file (or Adobe InDesign 3 files) or with an Adobe InDesign 4 file (or Adobe InDesign 4 files).

“Markzware’s mission is to make it easier for the creators and printers to work with the applications they are comfortable with so users can seamlessly integrate these valuable products into their existing workflow,” said Mary Gay Marchese, public relations of Markzware.

The Adobe InDesign user simply clicks on “File” in the toolbar, then “Open,” and selects the Microsoft Publisher file for conversion. This simple two-step process initiates the conversion and opens the document in Adobe InDesign, saving graphic artists, prepress and printing professionals countless hours that would otherwise be spent recreating the document from the ground up.  Read more... (623 words, estimated 2:30 mins reading time)

XChange International in the UK is making an incredible offer – Buy QuarkXPress to Adobe InDesign (Q2ID) or InDesign to QuarkXPress (ID2Q), which each cost 171 Pounds (199 Euros) respectively and get FlightCheck Professional an NO EXTRA CHARGE! FlightCheck normally costs 474 Pounds (499 Euros) – act today. Full offer from XChange International below:

Markzware, the creators of preflight technology, are pleased to work with XChange UK to promote an amazing offer. For a limited time only, purchase either the Q2ID (Quark to InDesign) or ID2Q (InDesign to Quark) conversion tool and receive FlightCheck Professional 6 free of charge.  Read more... (386 words, 7 images, estimated 1:33 mins reading time) Save £494.00 while stocks last! Q2ID (QuarkXPress to Adobe® InDesign) is a plug-in for converting documents from QuarkXPress® to InDesign® format. Q2ID now includes CS3 and CS4 compatibility. The plug-in is designed for use by service bureaus, translation services, data conversion specialists, and other users migrating to the Adobe InDesign platform. The product can convert Quark documents created with either the Microsoft® Windows® or Apple® Macintosh versions of QuarkXPress into Adobe InDesign for Macintosh format. The repurposed legacy content from Quark files preserves the content, pages, layers, look and feel of the original document. More…

Markzware recently attended the Adobe CS4 Launch presented by MoGo Media in New York and Chicago. There, we met Matt, who gave us a video testimonial about  PUB2ID (Microsoft Publisher to Adobe InDesign), a document conversion solution, and how it helped him out ‘big-time’: