Preflighting involves checking your supplied files for potential problems before your project lands on the press. I take your files through a specific preflight checklist to identify potential faults and then give you the opportunity to fix these yourself or let me make the corrections.
I work on a Macintosh platform and use Adobe CS4 which includes:
• InDesign
• Photoshop
• Illustrator
• Acrobat
Preflight Checklist
Image Resolution – images destined for print should be a minimum of 200 pixels per inch and ideally 300 ppi for continuous tone images. Line art and text files should be a minimum of 600 ppi to avoid jagged edges. 72 ppi resolution is only suitable for screen viewing and will appear jagged and chunky on the printed page.
Bleeds – If your design has images that touch the edge of the page, then those images need to extend beyond the edge of the document by a minimum of .125 inches (1/8”) to avoid white showing up between the edge of the image and the edge of the sheet due to slight shifting of the paper during printing and or trimming of the job after printing.
Page Count/Page Size – For multi-page documents, do the number of pages match the number specified in the quote from the printer. If the page count is off it will affect pagination and spine width in the bindery stage. Also, paper stock is ordered ahead of time, and if there is not enough paper on hand to print the full press run, costly delays will ensue. Incorrect page size (final trim size) will also have repercussions in bindery.
Colour Breaks – Is the job one colour (b/w), two colour (black with spot colour), four colour (process cmyk), or four colour plus spot colours (metallic or pantone inks and varnishes). A common mistake is the appearance of more spot colours than are called for in the quote, or spot colours when the job is supposed to be process only.
Fonts – have the fonts been supplied (or embedded in the case of PDF’s)
Missing Images – have all imported images (tiff files), and vector files (.ai, .eps), been included for all photographs, logos, charts, diagrams etc. that appear the document.
Highlights/Shadows – For the best quality reproduction of your halftone images, the highlight areas should not be blasted out (containing no dot) to prevent visual ‘hot spots’ in the image. Shadow areas should not be solid black as detail will be lost and the solid ink areas may appear smudged. It is preferable to have a 2% dot in the brightest highlight areas and a 97% maximum dot in the darkest shadow areas.
Reader Spreads – Documents created in ‘reader spreads’ in the layout program (ie 11×17 landscape) are not usable. All files must be in single page format. If your final trim size is 8.5 x 11 inches then build your document at 8.5 x 11 facing pages which will allow you to see your pages side by side.
