7 comments

• Comment Link Friday, 11 March 2011 03:23 posted by Eddy Hagen (VIGC)

  It is kind of sad to read that after so many years there are still so many issues with print ready files. Especially sad because all the tools are available:
  * GWG: the Ghent PDF Workgroup has settings files for both creating and preflighting PDF's, for no less than 13 different types of work/market segments. All available for free at www.gwg.org
  * VIGC (Belgium) has Live Preflight Profiles for use in Adobe InDesign CS4 and CS5, also availalbe for free. For the same market segments as the GWG profiles, so perfectly coordinated to get an error-free workflow. You can download them here: http://www.vigc.org/standard-preflight-profiles/
  
  But: printers need to communicate this to their customers instead of complaining about files not being print ready! With the VIGC Live Preflight Profiles we got a lot of feedback from designers, who REALLY LOVE them! And they keep asking why their printers didn't tell them about the existence of these kind of tools...
  
  So: use and promote the existing tools / settings files. Problematic PDF's will probably harm your bottom line. Unless you are able to charge the total amount of time you spent on fixing them... but, be honest: do you really charge for that?
  
  Eddy Hagen
  VIGC
• Comment Link Friday, 11 March 2011 09:28 posted by Michael Jahn

  I guess we prepress developer folks should be thankful - people still need to modify pdf files before they can print them, so we still can make a living.
• Comment Link Friday, 11 March 2011 12:04 posted by Jo Brunenberg

  It would be important to know how many people have voted.
  In this stage with these nice "round figures (15-30-55%) I cannot believe this to be a representative poll.
• Comment Link Friday, 11 March 2011 13:32 posted by George Battrick

  OK, I would say, from dividing the percentages into each other, that when Jo made his comments (15-30-55), there were 20 replies (3-6-11), and now (1905-2857-5238) there are 21 replies (4-6-11). Though of course it could be any multiple of these.
  
  So not a huge number, but there is probably still some meaning in it?
• Comment Link Tuesday, 22 March 2011 03:05 posted by David Dilling

  A simple FlightCheck can go a long way. This poll is in-line with what we hear from printers, for sure.
  
  This chart in the link below, imho, says it all, for the preflight problems are happening BEFORE the PDF even enters the picture:
  
  Print Quality – the Quality triangle for Designers, Layout Artists, Prepress Operators and Publishers alike
  
  First FlightCheck then PDF...
• Comment Link Tuesday, 22 March 2011 03:07 posted by David

  I guess "a href" code is not parsing, so here is the link to the preflight and FlightCheck chart:
  
  http://markzware.com/blogs/flightcheck-articles/print-quality-triangle-designers-layout-artists-prepress-operators-publishers/2010/02/18/
• Comment Link Wednesday, 20 April 2011 03:36 posted by Laurens

  It is a pity these polls only run for a week and that there is no clear indication of the number of participants. I am pretty surprised by the results and would have expected far less troublefree PDF files being supplied to printers. My impression is that these numbers were heavily influenced by votes from members of the GWG workgroup - people that can expect to get pretty good PDF files from their customers.
  To get a second opinion, I have duplicated this poll on my own site. You can find those results at http://www.prepressure.com/about/archive-2011