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!

Here was a nice email that was forwarded to me from Quark about a happy customer of both QuarkXPress v8 and ID2Q v4 or InDesign to Quark XT, which I would like to share in part:

“Thank you for your very quick response. I have just installed the XTension and used it to convert an ID CS4 document that I urgently needed to amend for someone who only uses Quark – and it worked perfectly! It’s saved me hours of work already – can’t quite believe it. I’ll pass on my appreciation to Marksware – excellent product!”
Source: New QuarkXPress 8 user whom got ID2Q v4 with it as well.

On that note, You’ll see that there are still plenty of happy Quark users out there, like Mike here, whom appears to use Adobe Photoshop happily with QuarkXPress, which I saw on Twitter:

Not all Adobe CS users choose InDesign, but some QuarkXPress...

Here was an interesting Tweet I saw on GraphicStart’s watch list for tracking all things Quark on Twitter:

Find anything that passes through Twitter that has to do with the layout application QuarkXPress.

ZUR SOFORTIGEN VERÖFFENTLICHUNG

Neue Preflight-Software zur lückenlosen Qualitätssicherung im Digitaldruck

Markzware FlightCheck® Professional jetzt mit Unterstützung für QuarkXPress 8 & Adobe Creative Suite 4

RIJSWIJK, Niederlande, 31. August 2009: Das Unternehmen Markzware, anerkannter Preflight-Experte und -Erfinder, veröffentlicht ein wichtiges Upgrade der beliebten Preflight-Software FlightCheck Professional für Macintosh. FlightCheck Professional 6.5 bietet vollständige Unterstützung für QuarkXPress 8 und Adobe Creative Suite 4 / CS4. Die leistungsstarke neue Version gestattet Druckereien, Grafikdesignern und Verlagen ein effizientes Preflight zur Vermeidung kostspieliger Produktionsfehler.

Die mittlerweile üblichen kleineren Auflagen und kürzeren Abwicklungszeiten erfordern eine bessere Qualitätskontrolle bei digitalen Druckdateien. Adobe PDF-, InDesign-, QuarkXPress- und andere Dateien enthalten mehrere Elementkategorien wie Schriftarten, Farben, Bilder, Dokumenteinstellungen usw., die alle potenzielle Fehlerquellen bei der Druckausgabe sind. FlightCheck ist deshalb so beliebt, weil es flexibel zur Überprüfung sämtlicher Dokumentelemente in Dateien verschiedenster Formate eingesetzt werden kann. Viele halten es für das beste Tool zur Qualitätskontrolle.

Angesichts der derzeitigen wirtschaftlichen Lage müssen Dokumente in Druckereien und Verlagen genau geprüft werden, um Neudrucke zu vermeiden und wettbewerbsfähig zu bleiben. Drucker, Verleger und Grafikdesigner können sich hier voll auf http://www.markzware.com/flightcheck_professional/ FlightCheck 6.5 verlassen und von seinen Funktionen profitieren.  Read more... (534 words, estimated 2:08 mins reading time)

Email Tuesdays. Here was a good question, which we often get for our Quark to InDesign Adobe Plugin, Q2ID:

On Aug 31, 2009, at 7:00 PM, Xxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxco.uk wrote:

=======================================================

Question::
Hello, I am currently considering buying Q2ID but I need to know if it will convert Multiple Language Quark Documents. I look forward to your reply.
Thanks James.

— — —         — — —         — — —

Hello James,

Yes indeed, Q2ID will convert multiple language files (good question though, we get asked that often.). We only have some issue with 2-byte character languages (Chinese, Arabic, etc), but even then, the layout converts fine. So yes, Q2ID will open any western language document and convert the entire design layout for you with one click! (As will Publisher to InDesign- PUB2ID and ID2Q or InDesign to Quark, the  other way around, btw.)
See:
http://www.markzware.com/q2id

Cc’ed is our partner in the UK whom can assist with your order or any other questions, XChnage International.

Friendly Regards,
David Dilling
Markzware Europe

— — —         — — —         — — —         — — —

FlightCheck v6.5 with CS4 and QuarkXPress 8 support – NOW SHIPPING!
http://www.markzware.com/flightcheck_professional  Read more... (268 words, estimated 1:04 mins reading time)

Contact:
Mary Gay Marchese
949-756-5100, ext. 250
pr@markzware.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NEW PREFLIGHTING SOFTWARE – Offers Digital Printers, Publishers and Graphic Designers Complete Quality Control
Markzware FlightCheck® Professional Now Supports QuarkXPress 8 & Adobe CS4 Suite

SANTA ANA, California, August 28 , 2009 — Markzware (www.markzware.com), the recognized authority and inventor of preflighting, released a significant upgrade to its popular preflighting solution, FlightCheck Professional for Macintosh. In light of today’s economic challenges, Markzware is offering $100 off this latest version of  FlightCheck Professional v6.5  which has full support for the Adobe CS4 Creative Suite (including Adobe CS4 Design Standard and Adobe CS4 Design Premium) and QuarkXPress 8. This powerful upgrade gives printers, graphic designers and publishers the ability to preflight efficiently, avoiding costly production errors.

For well over a decade, the process of preflighting has been an important step for printers and prepress professionals worldwide.  Preflighting is the process that identifies and corrects missing items and errors in customer files before they become bigger and more costly problems further downstream in the printing process.  Read more... (793 words, estimated 3:10 mins reading time)

Here is a quick post about a neat little article, which you can click through to here, “What’s hot in Prepress?”

Just a small taste:

“Now forget what is hot in prepress. That was just a teaser title. Apparently what’s hot in prepress and has been hot in prepress in years is that boat-anchor of a beast called inkjet and you want to stay as far away from a a shop buying inkjet presses as you can. You don’t want what is hot, you want to be with a shop that is making money. Shops that make money tend to want to hire people, I have discovered this great secret in my twenty years in the workforce. So let’s focus on the shops that make money!

Packaging printers are still making the coin. Not that they would tell you that. The average commercial printer is pretty tight-lipped about cash flow but put him next to a packaging printer and he would look as chatty as Paula Abdul. Trust me on this, the packaging guys are still bankin’ and the prepress work in packaging is not going to be shipped out to the drones in Kinko’s anytime soon. The tool of choice in packaging is either Artpro or Prinergy Powerpack (other vendors in the packaging biz, feel free to plug your wares in the comments section). If you want to check out what packaging guys like to talk about, check out converting magazine.”  Read more... (274 words, estimated 1:06 mins reading time)

Maybe we can get some comments from people that use FlightAlert XT from CompuSense. We read about it via a press release from XChange:

FlightAlert XT combines on-the-fly error checking of QuarkXPress documents with one of the most powerful Collect For Output engines available.

FlightAlert scans QuarkXPress documents for the key problems that regularly waste time, money and film. It is unique among the error-checking products in that there is no need to invoke or apply FlightAlert. It operates in the background as users work making it an ideal solution for integration into busy production and prepress workflows.

FlightAlert can be set to scan on Open, Close, Save, Save As, Save Page as EPS and Collect for Output. By concentrating on the core of common problems, each FlightAlert scan is virtually instantaneous on small documents and takes a negligible amount of time even on large documents.
Source: http://members.whattheythink.com/news/newslink.cfm?id=37503

Who has used both FlightCheck (the original and patented) and FlightAlert. What features do you think are better in one than the other? How is the price value better or worse?

Just received my Pro2col newsletter today in the Apple Mail in-box and this caught my eye, especially for those receiving layouts & graphics, packaging layout, layouts software for print, or layouts design print jobs from various sources:

Dramatic savings – Printers’ file delivery/preflight workflow

In the current economic climate where marketing budgets have been slashed and margins are tight, making savings are key.  This workflow enabled the printer to completely automate the file delivery, preflight check, notification process and further expand the workflow into other areas.
Source: http://www.pro2col.com

Using an Enfocus Switch (FullSwitch or LightSwitch) workflow, one can also easily and quickly integrate FlightCheck Professional. Which will be updated for Adobe InDesign CS4 and QuarkXPress 8 support within the coming weeks!

Want to set-up your own Preflight Workflow, which could also link in with what Pro2col has created? Watch here this video of FlightCheck and FullSwitch from Enfocus in action:

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)

David Creamer has reviewed Markzware’s document conversion tool, Q2ID v4 in the current issue of “Layers Magazine.”

FROM QUARK TO INDESIGN IN A SNAP

The main focus of Q2ID v4 is to support InDesign CS4 and QuarkXPress 8 files. One important thing that’s changed in this version is the updated conversion notes PDF, which now lists most of the conversion issues you might encounter. Another change is that you can use either the InDesign Open menu or the new Markzware menu. Quark files with multiple layouts can be converted individually or all at once; multiple Quark files can be converted, too.

This version appears to fix most of the issues I noted in the last version, including keeping the proper based-on settings, better translations of Quark’s transparency effects into InDesign (with one major exception noted below), and better layer translation between programs.  Read more... (333 words, 1 image, estimated 1:20 mins reading time)