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Good Day, everybody! David Dilling from Markzware with today's quick how-to:
How to Prepress Layout.
How can we get a
DTP or desktop publishing layout like Adobe InDesign,
QuarkXPress,
Photoshop, or in this case, this Adobe Illustrator file ready for prepress?
Now, we're going to cruise over to inkd.com,
and as you can see on this particular web page, which I'll link to,
on inkd, they did a full idea on how to prepress a layout,
how to get a layout ready for prepress,
whether it's InDesign, QuarkXPress,
Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop,
it doesn't really matter, the same basic principles apply.
First, you'll see a quick overview of the,
well, as they say,
four
steps of
getting a file prepress ready.
The four steps are
manually checking and adjusting your layout
and graphics files
in Adobe, Quark, Microsoft-type layout applications.
Step 2 is to preflight your file,
preferably with a tool,
with aĆstandalone, such as Markzware's FlightCheck,
which will check all major layout types
for DTP, or desktop publishing.
The second step
on how to prepress a layout is to collect your job, to package
all used elements,
fonts,
images, graphics,
colors, previews,
you know, you name it,
required plugins, xtensions,
to package all the material from your Photoshop layout, your Illustrator artwork
your Adobe InDesign layout,
your QuarkXPress desktop publishing layout, etc.
And lastly, creating a preview PDF file.
Now Step 1,
the, actually the manual preflight process of
how to prepress a layout
is essentially largely covered in the next step called Preflight,
however,
not 100%.
There are many items which cannot be handled in traditional preflight.
For instance, extending the artwork to bleed lines,
to trash unused color swatches, making sure your fonts are all linked.
Make sure all your fonts are active and collectable
that can be packaged.
These are all items which you'll need to do manually, one way or another, or be
sure that you have done them.
So, it is good to manually double-check everything. Just like for an airplane, you would
do a so-called "preflight" check, which is Step 2.
As you'll see, one of the recommended tools is Markzware's FlightCheck,
which is a standalone tool, which will quickly and easily preflight your
entire layout, whether
Adobe Illustrator,
even Adobe Photoshop .psd files,
and of course, InDesign, QuarkXPress and other major DTP or desktop publishing
file formats.
As they mention, the typical errors and how to fix them are:
linked graphics, or images that are RGB.
Depending on your RIP, you may need to have your images in CMYK only...
missing fonts, or in the PDF world,
non-embedded fonts.
And, last but not least, the final step is
packaging
your file. It's not the final step, it's the second to last step: collecting or packaging
all your fonts and images into one file.
Markzware's FlightCheck offers that, as well.
It will allow you to collect all needed elements into one folder, even compressing
it,
so you can pass it on to the prepress department.
that makes how to prepress layout very easy. Last, but not least, is creating a
PDF preview, if you're going to send the native file to the printer or prepress
department, as well.
If the layout is going to be needed as a PDF, a print PDF,
the final step will then be to create that print PDF.
How to get your layout ready for prepress?
One of the most important processes
in the entire
process is preflighting.
Preflighting tools, which can, not only preflight, but also package your jobs,
and even the manual part at the beginning can be largely handled
by an electronic preflight tool, like Markzware's FlightCheck. As we saw in the beginning, in this chart
about preflighting,
it's very important to understand this principle:
to catch and find and fix a small problem
which seems small, in design.
For instance, a
font which is missing or an
image which is RGB or low resolution...
To find such a problem at the design stage,
may only cost 10 pounds,
or 8 Euros,
or 7 dollars, or something in that range,
and cost only a few minutes to fix it, for the designer;
but if the designer passes that problem
down to the layout artist, and the layout artist passes it down to prepress,
and prepress passes that down
into the plate, and into the final press,
to the final printing piece,
or to the final outputted piece,
you could be talking about
going from 10 pounds, or 8 Euros, or 7 dollars wasted
to thousands of pounds, Euros or dollars wasted.
That's the all important
process of preflight
in prepress.
If you'd like to try FlightCheck for yourself, cruise over to markzware.com, and
check it out today. There's a free demo version, a 30-day, full-working free
version for you to use,
preflight and package files
with Markzware's FlightCheck.
Thank you very much. This is David Dilling from Markzware, signing off.